Three retention and enrollment management experts, with more than twenty years' experience working in more than 620 institutions, share their most effective innovations and best practices that have achieved cost-effective results.
Strategic Moves for Retention SuccessRandi S. Levitz, Lee Noel, Beth J. Richter A revolution appears to be sweeping the campuses of the nation' s colleges and universities, and it is based on a simple credo: The success of an institution and the success of its students are inseparable. Institutions that take this credo seriously commit the institution-and every individual in it, from the president to faculty members to support staff-to a path of radical and permanent change.One reason to begin this journey is that many institutions that have already done so have experienced enormous success. A more compelling reason is that institutions that do not may not thrive. There are times when doing nothing is the most dangerous course, and these may well be such times. As budgets tighten, competition for students increases, resources shrink, and regents, legislators, taxpayers, and prospective students and their families take up the cry for institutional accountability, institutions that put students first will succeed, even excel, just as their students will.The credo also has an important corollary: Student persistence to the completion of educational goals is a key indicator of student satisfaction and success. Persistence is an individual performance indicator, and it is measurable. If information on students' goals is collected, preferably at the beginning of each term, then whether an individual student persists to the completion of his or her educational goals can be measured. On the other hand, retention is an institutional performance indicator. In this context the corollary means that student retention is the primary gauge for collectively assessing the success-defined much more broadly than just academic success-of students, and therefore of an institution. Retention, then, is not the primary goal, but it is the best indicator that an institution is meeting its goal of student satisfaction and success. It is a measure of how much student growth and learning takes place, how valued and respected students