College students may sometimes feel they need to take a break from college life. These students may return to their original campus, may transfer, or may permanently discontinue their educations. For colleges and universities pursuing positive enrollment management outcomes, these students represent opportunities to make measurable improvements in retention/persistence rates as well as college completion. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how on-leave interactions affect students' institutional commitment and motivation to re-enroll. Tinto's (1975) interactionalist model of student departure provided a theoretical framework for investigating the problem of stop-out student attrition. The key finding of this study suggests that Schlossberg's (1989) conception of marginality and mattering applies to the stop-out student experience and explains the step between interactions and integration in Tinto's model. Interactions that made participants feel mattered by their individual points of contact were more meaningful and influential in building affinity with the college environment, positively affecting the desire to re-enroll. Additional research is needed to further explore the stop-out student experience and investigate the reasons students decide not to return to their original institutions.
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