Two sides of the same coin: student retention

John N. Gardner Is Senior Fellow of the National Resource Center for The First- Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina.

Watson Scott Swail is President of the Educational Policy Institute Inc., in Stafford, Virginia.

Interview with Dr. Gardner

Berg: While debating the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the Bush administration and Congress have been discussing student retention. Do you think Administration focus on the Higher Education Act is a good thing for colleges?

Gardner: Sure. I think student retention is an important education issue and Congress ought to be talking about important education issues.

Berg: Are you aware of some of the proposals they're putting out for how to gauge student retention?

Gardner: Not with any degree of specificity. I've read some of the reports about concerns campuses are expressing, particularly the potential for a "one size fits all" template which would obviously work against-or the fear is that it would work against institutions that are less selective.

Berg: Regarding selective colleges, it's been suggested that they have a higher retention rate because they tend to offer more financial aid, smaller classes, more contact with professors and a more studious social environment than the non-selective counterparts. What are your thoughts?

Gardner: I think those overlook the main reasons they have higher retention rates. The main reason is because they have students with a much higher level of preparation in high school, all their school histories, preschool through high school. The more selective institutions have a much higher proportion of affluent families' children. The odds are overwhelmingly stacked in their favor that they are more likely to be retained in college. It's the whole issue of comparing colleges on an outcome, namely retention, but for which the input variable is not the same. There's a dramatic difference in the input variable, namely the students, their socioeconomic background, and the level of preparation of students going into the more selective institutions.

Berg: I could see someone asking why that makes a difference. If you have a smart student going to a selective college and a smart student going to one that is less selective, what difference does background make?

Gardner: I think it's inconceivable that anybody could raise that question. In other words, I would think just about anybody would understand that a student from an upper middle class family, with one or both parents being college graduates and as a student immersed in a college preparatory educational process all his or her life, that's going to make a difference versus students who are not affluent and have not been college-preparatory all their lives.

Berg: What is it that the affluent, college preparatory students are getting that the other students aren't?

Gardner: For one thing, they're getting constant contact, since preschool, with other children like them. They're getting exposed to an enormous range of opportunities: travel, enrichment activities, resources at home, computing capability at home, all kinds of stimulation. The difference in the opportunities that affluent children get when contrasted to poor children in this country is just enormous. And all those differences have an impact on educational performance, both pre-college and during college.

Berg: How might non-selective colleges offer opportunities or counter some of the disadvantages that a non-affluent student has?

Gardner: There are a whole range of practices and activities that less-selective colleges can-and many of them do-engage in to try to leverage the success of incoming students. In the middle 1960s, the federal government gave us a number of models or strategies to help those students be more successful. For example, there are the TRIO programs (http://www.ed.gov/ about/offices/list/ope/trio/index.html). The models used in the TRIO programs can be used in non-TRIO programs to help the same kinds of students be successful. The problem is that even with the combination of federal money and the resources institutions have, there aren't enough resources to serve all the under-served disadvantaged youngsters in the country. For example, the TRIO programs created something called "Upward Bound," a federally supported anti-poverty educational initiative for high school aged youngsters that has been in existence since 1965. It recruits economically disadvantaged youngsters after their 10th grade and brings them to a college campus for three summers, the summer after their sophomore, junior, and senior years. As a result, they've got three summer experiences that are designed to both motivate and prepare them to do college work.

The Upward Bound programs also have follow-up tutoring programs during the junior and senior academic years. In other words, when you compare a kid who's been in Upward Bound, who's had three summers on a college campus before he or she actually starts going to college, with an economically disadvantaged youngster who's first college experience is after graduation from high school-that student would have had no previous experience on a college campus-the difference is just enormous in terms of an advantage for the kids who've been in the Upward Bound program. They've spent three summers on campus, they've learned their way around, they feel comfortable, they know how to talk to professors, they've used the college library, they already know a lot about how the higher education game is played. That's a model. If more colleges were finding ways to get disadvantaged youngsters on campus, say during summers, prior to actually beginning college, those students would perform better. I'm just highlighting one of many strategies that could be used by colleges and universities if they wanted to increase the success of economically underserved students.

Berg: My college is involved with a program called Growth Works. I gave a seminar for the Growth Works students a few weeks ago. Since then, when those students walk past my office, it's, "Hi, Dr. Berg! How ya doin'?" They now have a connection to a faculty member on the campus that most incoming students don't have. What other things, as faculty members, can we do to help student retention?

Gardner: There are all kinds of pedagogies and strategies faculty can engage in that may make a difference for student retention. For one thing, how we as faculty organize and deliver the curriculum makes a big difference. The so-called Learning Community is one model, where faculty in teams teach cohorts of students. You take a small cohort of entering students, 25 to 30 students, and they take two or more courses together, preferably four or five courses, but at least two are taken as a cohort. The faculty members teaching those courses integrate their syllabi and collaborate on common themes, common assignments, and common reading. There are a number of different models for learning communities, but they've been shown to have very positive impact on student academic performance and retention, both in 2-year and 4-year institutions. But the faculty has to be willing to teach in those learning community models. Because faculty determines how the curriculum gets executed, this is something faculty has control over.

We know that something called the First-Year Seminar-courses that have been around since the 188Os-helps teach college students how to be successful. Those courses have been shown to have a very positive impact on student retention. One of the concerns that I have is that those two examples-learning communities and first-year seminars-are least likely to be practiced by faculty in community colleges. In other words, the learning community structure and the first-year seminar are two of the most effective retention delivery mechanisms that we know of through 30 years of research. But when you compare whether 2-year colleges versus 4-year colleges are likely to engage in those two practices, 2-year colleges are less likely to do so. Now that's a concern in 2-year colleges because of the input variables and who the students are, you have a higher proportion of students in the 2-year sector that are less likely to be retained in college. These are two examples that faculty members do influence, they do control, and they do impact retention. We've known for about 25 years that one very good predictor of which student will persist is the student in the first year who interacts with faculty outside of class. We understand the research on that, we know how important that is, and think, "How could I, as part of my teaching, design learning experiences or design some incentives to get students to interact with me outside of class?"

Berg: In my office I have an espresso pot that is very popular with students. What are other things 1 could do to encourage students to interact with me outside of class?

Gardner: You could require it. For example, if you have a total of 120 students over a 15-week term, you could agree to visit with 8 students a week in your office. That would permit you to have at least one conversation with each student. Ideally it would be better if you front-loaded that earlier in the term. You could say, if you want a complete grade, as opposed to an incomplete grade for this course, you must come by and have a ??-minute conversation with me during my office hours. You could put a sign-up sheet on your door-anything to get them to come see you at least once in your office, where they would learn, for example, that you have your office decorated in an interesting manner, you have the espresso coffee pot there, you're a pretty neat guy, you don't invade their privacy, you're warm, friendly, fun to interact with, you've got a good sense of humor. They might actually come back to see you a second time. Make a kind of structured interview a course requirement. Another way, if you didn't want to mandate a visit, you could agree to offer a student extra credit for coming to see you. One visit, ten minutes, and you add five points to their lowest score or something like that. You could work out some kind of incentive.

Berg: Is 10 minutes enough time?

Gardner: I just picked that arbitrarily so that it wouldn't be onerous on the instructor or students. Ideally, 30 minutes would be better than 10 minutes, but anything that gets you together with a student for a few minutes and enables you to say, "How're you doing overall? Are you getting the help you need? Are you having any difficulties in my course? Tell me a bit about yourself." Anything to personalize the relationship between you and the student. The research shows that once students have interacted with a faculty member outside of class, it begins to modify their behavior. They figure Professor Jones is a pretty decent fellow; he seems sincerely interested in me. Gee, maybe I'd better go to class a little more often. Maybe I need to sit a little closer to the front. Maybe I ought to act like I've read the material, put my hand up once in awhile and ask him a question. In other words, the out-of-class interaction between a student and faculty member begins to change the behavior of the student. Behavioral change is what we're after here, because that's what correlates to retention. My generic point here was that one strategy in which faculty can engage that would help leverage student retention is to encourage more out-of-class interaction between faculty and students.

Faculty can also recognize that students who are more likely to be retained are students who are more likely to get help-students who engage in assistance-seeking behavior. You could encourage-or require-your students, as a condition of being in your course, to use certain types of services where they get assistance on your campus, like tutoring, for example, or an academic support center or learning lab, perhaps attend a study skills workshop, etc. Getting help is particularly problematic for male students. Male students have lower retention rates than female students. They're just less likely to get assistance. So, one of the things that faculty members need to do more of is actually mandate that students seek assistance. If they did that, retention rates would be higher. There's a good bit of evidence which suggests that group work, group projects support persistence. They force students in a class to get to know a few other students in the class. Research has found that two things correlate to retention: The first is making friends with other students and the second is combining the friendship formation process with academic work. I'm a recovering former history professor myself, so I know the historic paradigm for student work in the discipline of history is to have a student do an individual research project. From the point of view of retention, that's not as productive a strategy. You should at least give your students the opportunity for some types of group work, whether a paper or collecting information for an in-class presentation or collecting information in the library for some type of questionnaire you've put together.

Another thing you influence as a faculty member is how much time students spend on campus, how much time they engage in behaviors that are related to the academic mission of the institution. There's a correlation between time and energy invested and persistence. If I were teaching history at Schoolcraft, I would be thinking of ways that I could, as part of my teaching of history, require students to do certain things that they've got to do on campus with other students, such as attending lectures or presentations, going to different places on campus to collect information, spending time at learning skills workshops put together by the learning center on campus, or library workshops. One of the things we've done particularly at the commuter institutions is make it so convenient for students not to be there that they're much less engaged with the campus. The less engaged you are with the campus, the less likely you are to stay. In general, particularly in community colleges where students are less likely to seek assistance of any kind, you the faculty member are the frontline person. You're the most influential retention agent in the community. You've got to be the fount of all information and all knowledge about the campus, you've got to be willing to intrude and offer advice and referrals. Your behavior is a tremendously important variable in the retention equation, particularly on a community college campus where the students are not going to be living in a residence hall, they're not going to be observed by other faculty and staff that might be attentive to some of these issues. Most of them are not going to be joining co-curricular clubs or organizations, activities or athletic teams. The key group they're in is your class.

Berg: I'd like to consider group work a bit more. I hated doing group work when I was an undergrad, and avoided it, then avoided it as a teacher for many years. I think a lot of my colleagues are like I was, of the generation where we were trained to be individual researchers and this group stuff is all foreign. Are students different today? Are they more apt to do group work? Do they come to us with a background in group work?

Gardner: They're more apt to do it because many of them were asked to do it in high school. The reality is that students are in college because they want a better job. One of the things we know is in most occupations, students are going to be asked to work in groups. The historic collegiate model of exclusive emphasis on individual work is not an adequate model for preparation to function in today's work force. Employers are putting colleges and universities under more pressure to produce students who've had experience with collaborative work. You have to persuade students that the group strategies have been shown to help students perform better academically, earn better grades, increase the probability of graduation and consequently they're better prepared for life after college in real work environments.

Berg: How might we persuade a very reluctant faculty member who has no experience doing group work to try it?

Gardner: I guess I would attempt it the same way I just did with you. I would try to take advantage of in-service days or professional development workshops to point out the academic pedagogical value of group work, and I would try to help faculty develop some skills in doing that.

Berg: Is there a role for technology in retention?

Gardner: I think the jury is way, way out on that. I don't know of any controlled research that's been done. It's not to say that technology doesn't have a role. Surely it does have a role in enhancing faculty-student communication, in providing information for students-if they use the information-but in terms of concrete technology use shown to correlate with persistence, I don't know of any, haven't seen any published research to that effect.

Berg: For better or worse, technology is a greater and greater factor, but I find I have more contact with students when I encourage them to email me. The downside is that it takes more time.

One colleague has said, "Ask Dr. Gardner about students who register late for classes." The concern was that students who register late, especially after the first day of class tend to be more likely to fail the class.

Gardner: I would think there would be a high correlation, yes. One of the many reasons you have higher failure and attrition rates in community colleges is because you are the most flexible organization about when students have to apply, when they can register and start classes. You have a lot of good company. A lot of the baccalaureate-level-particularly the less selective-institutions engage in the same kind of practices. You're focusing overwhelmingly on convenience and because that's the value, you allow students to register pretty much whenever they want. What it means for students who register late is they've probably not received any kind of orientation, they've missed the initial one or more classes where the faculty member has gone over the syllabus and laid the basic ground rules and already begun to lay out certain core concepts of the course. The student is already at a tremendous disadvantage. I think it's educationally-I could use some very strong language-inappropriate, immoral, educationally bankrupt, to take students' money, time, hope and aspirations and allow them to start classes late... I don't know. I think it's inappropriate. If I were running a college I wouldn't allow it.

Berg: In my own experience, students who skip the first class tend to be students who don't finish. I'd like to figure out how to convey to students the importance of the first class.

Gardner: A lot of that is back to the faculty culture. I taught in a 2-year institution from 1967-1968. That's a long time ago, but my first college teaching was in a 2-year institution. What I'm going to say to you is an assumption, a hypothesis. If I were teaching now, in an institution that had a high tolerance level for late registration, and I knew that many students would not be attending my first class, I would offer that first class meeting on the assumption that many of the students would not be there and it's a waste of my time to do a substantive job on the first day of class. I'll bet there is a fairly substantial number of instructors for whom the first day of class is, "Hi. Here's the syllabus. I'm Steve Somebody. Have a nice day and I'll see you next week." You don't want to have to repeat things to all the stragglers. You know your class roll is going to be 50% different on the second day of class. It's an incentive for you to waste one of your precious 28 or 30 meetings in a term. You're wasting 1/30th of your opportunity to impact students. I could be wrong, but I suspect that's what's happening.

Berg: You're saying that as faculty we need to have substantive first days so that students learn that all classes are substantive.

Gardner: That's correct. You know, that could get the word out. The counselors who advise students what course to take, if they know that Steve Berg is a no-bullshit guy, he's a stand-up serious academic who's going to give his students their money's worth, all 28 classes, they would know not to put a student into your class beginning the second week, because that student would have already missed two full class meetings. Moreover, we know early and frequent testing correlates with student learning. You may even be giving your first test on the third class meeting of the term which is when some of these students would be starting class because they were allowed to register late.

Berg: Is there anything you'd like to add?

Gardner: My whole purpose here was to answer your questions completely and honestly and I hope I've done that.

Interview with Dr. Swail

Berg: I know you've been very active in the debate on the Higher Education Reauthorization Act. The Bush administration and Congress have been talking a great deal about student retention with regard to the Higher Education Reauthorization Act. Do you think this is a good thing for colleges?

Swail: It can work both ways. It's a good thing if it raises the conversation to a level such that everyone sees this as an important issue for the future of higher education and the future success of students. It's a bad thing if it's done in a punitive fashion with little regard for trying to improve things. Currently there have been a few things thrown out of the House by Republican members-and then some added by Democrats-to attempt to put some controls on colleges and universities, to increase their retention rates or, to put it another way, increase their "persistence to degree" rates. Unfortunately, the original Republican pieces that came out were more punitive in fashion, and Democrats say part of persistence depends on how states appropriate funds as well.

On the retention side, Congress hasn't actually done anything at this time; they spent most of their work on the college cost issue. But the writing is on the wall for colleges and universities-if they don't do something, Congress will. How that ends up, we don't know, but it certainly sends a signal to colleges and universities that they'd better start taking care of their own retention business or someone else is going to suggest strongly that they do so. In the end, unfortunately for colleges and universities, the ability to retain students does have a dollar sign posted to it. It isn't just about restructuring budgets and reallocating funding to places where it could be better spent. Sure, that's part of it, but when we've gone around to look at colleges and universities around the country, ultimately those who can do the best are those that either have endowments or the fiscal ability to make these changes.

Berg: Why is that?

Swail: I think it comes down to students stay when there's some focus on them. When an institution is student-focused, when the resources support the academic and social needs of the students, those students are more likely to stay. At an institution where those resources are not easily available-and I don't mean that these are bad institutions-but they don't have what we might call the "extra" funds to go into support services such as tutoring, mentoring, and social activities that allow students to become part of the institution. Those are all enormously important issues, and some institutions are able to do much better than others in part, due to money.

Berg: Some might say that those "extras" are really not necessary. Students should go and study.

Swail: I don't know many people that would say that, to be honest with you. The reason we send our children off to college is, in large part, for the social experience. You can stay home and get on your computer and get a degree these days. You can go to your local community college or university and get a fine degree. But we choose not to do that because we've learned to value the importance of going away to college. That's the true maturation point for students. That's where they meet their lifelong friends, of those that go to postsecondary education, that is. There is an important factor here. We find that a lot of students who leave college have not been in a position where they're making friends. They're not making the connections to the university. Some discount the "non-cognitive factors" as they're often referred to, but they're very, very important issues. If students are not comfortable in that situation-regardless of academic prowess-they will not stay.

Berg: Currently I teach at a community college that's a commuter school. We will never build a dormitory. What can we do?

Swail: There are different colleges for different reasons. If there isn't that live-on-campus opportunity, there has to be something else to get the students involved. There can be fraternities, sororities, academic or social clubs, but there has to be something there to engage the student, otherwise, it is purely an academic pursuit and an academic pursuit isn't always enough to retain students, especially those that perhaps aren't at the highest level of academic ability.

Berg: As the faculty advisor for a club here on campus, you're saying I'm helping with student retention by being involved in that?

Swail: Yes, that could be said. I have no problem accepting that. By having small groups, it's an opportunity to engage students. Churches do it all the time in small group work. Political organizations do it by trying to create small groups. So do universities and colleges. We all do it to get engagement with that student; it's critical.

Berg: Are there other things that individual faculty members can do to promote retention?

Swail: As a matter of fact, the faculty member is probably the most important person. If you had to identify one person on campus that can really change things, it's the faculty member. Their ability to connect with students, to be involved with their students, and also to identify red flags that may come up when a student is in trouble-the faculty member is the early warning system. The problem is, it's not always easy for the faculty member to do all those things. Let's look at the faculty member who's doing introductory course work and doing large class lectures to 200-plus people. It's difficult to red-flag all these students without some type of systematic support. Advising, something that faculty members don't all enjoy doing, don't always feel they have enough time to do, if done the right way can be another method of identifying when a student is in trouble and directing them to a path that will meet the student's needs. Advising gives instructors a face-to-face opportunity to provide that support, to meet with the student. A lot of people blow off the advising process. But it's just another of those important pieces that, when done right, can make all the difference in the world.

Berg: I have 120 students a semester. How do I get to know or advise that many?

Swail: It depends on the structure of the institution how it's done, and if you have any other support. If those 120 aren't just yours-generally students are shared-there can be some kind of processing that way. Ultimately something has to be done on the administrative level to foresee the number crunch. We have to be able to reduce to a meaningful level the number of advisees a professor has. Otherwise, the advising process becomes nothing, a shell for what it could be. If you have 120 students to advise, you're not going to meet with them all; you're not going to see them for a period of time that is meaningful. Something has to happen there. You can't be Super Advisor. Even if there are Super Advisors on campus, that's not a systematic way to change the system.

Berg: Realizing I can't get to know and mentor 120 students, what are some things I can do to make myself available to those who might be interested?

Swail: A couple of things. Simply do that: make yourself available. Most faculty post their office hours, but that doesn't necessarily mean the faculty member is seen as inviting. You can remember those faculty who posted their office hours but you wouldn't dare call on them because it just wasn't an open experience. More intimidating, like John Houseman in The Paper Chase years back, you'd be scared senseless to go talk to these people. The whole idea is if you really have office hours, expand them as much as you can, really invite people to use them, and sometimes when you get a look at grade postings and everything else, invite students to come see you. If you notice "C" students on the midterm exam or even your first or second week test in class, invite them even in a group session. Invite 5 or 6 of them to your office just to have a discussion. Say, "Hey, I noticed you guys were having some problems with this. What can we do about it?" Engage in a dialogue. Maybe there are TAs that can help. Don't discount email. Email is a boon or bust for faculty members, but it is another source of dialogue and students do like to use email.

Berg: How could I effectively use email?

Swail: Again, it's a communication starter. That's the way I would use it. If you include, along with your office hours, something like, "Hey, if you have a question, send me an email. Think it through, but send me an email. I will respond within so many days or hours. That's my policy." Once you receive an email from a student, that is a student saying, "I want some help or advice." They've reached out. The difficulty is in getting them to send it, but once they do the door is open for you to engage in a conversation. It may be long, it may be brief, but it is an opportunity for you, one-on-one, which is what email is in this sense, to engage in that conversation and try to serve the student better.

Berg: I stress with my students that email is the most effective way to communicate with me because we don't have to play phone tag. I actually communicate better and quicker with students through email.

Swail: That's interesting because I've taught some online courses and written on issues of distance education noting that they're not always equitable systems for access. But I've got to admit, the students who took these courses-and I have students from Japan, from all over the world-they took the distance education courses because they communicated more than they did in class. I thought that was a very strange take on it, but I came to realize that they were right, because the conversation was now forced and expected for grades. So they communicated and there was a track of what people said. Email can be used very effectively and as a retention tool, I think it can be a wonderful way to improve communication with students. People who wouldn't come up to you face-to-face will send an email.

Berg: As I meet with students and learn that they have difficulties such as attention deficit disorder, personality problems, what is my role in dealing with those issues?

Swail: It depends on the level. If a student is truly a special needs student or is sort of "special needs lite," in other words, attention deficit that doesn't require specific programming but does have a special need. In those cases, on most campuses, you're on your own. There isn't going to be a lot of support. If there are more severe cases of cognition, there are support staff on campus that can provide you some know-how on how to deal with these things. In terms of those in your class with ADD-and it seems that around a quarter of students have some level of attention deficit-you can start playing with your teaching style to meet a variety of learning styles. Faculty don't often think about teaching style issues, especially research-type faculty. But we must remember we are there ultimately to teach students. We can jumble up how we teach and do it in a number of ways, some visual, some cooperative, some individual, so a student doesn't get locked in a classroom that is only didactic, the typical lecture style. Some students will definitely get lost in that. If we can mix it up as teachers, we can deal with probably 50% of those issues right there.

Berg: I've learned over the years a lot of students like group work, and I've become more adept at creating group assignments.

Swail: I think kids now are a lot more accustomed to doing group work. High schools have been on the bandwagon, and now it's a regular, expected thing to do. Students also know if they do it well, group work can be easier. For some it can be harder, I guess, but there is a fairness issue there and I think students get it pretty clearly. It's sort of like watching "The Apprentice." That was about team-building and some people completely failed. Once they failed, they were ostracized from the group. It's the same in a class. You're either in or you're out and if you don't do the work, boy you have egg on your face. It can get nasty. People will come to your office and start saying, "Hey, so-and-so didn't do a thing on this. What can we do about it?" Now that's another problem for the professor to deal with, but it shows that these kids care.

Berg: You said students are accustomed to group work in high school. In our generation, we didn't do as much group work. Are there other assumptions we may be making about students that might make the classroom experience less desirable and thus negatively affect retention?

Swail: That's a good question. I don't think we should get caught up in believing that students should be spoon-fed. When we talk about retention, we talk about the academic support. We shouldn't confuse that with the spoon-feeding approach. That's not what it is. It's providing academic support. The responsibility for learning still resides with the students. They have to have the motivation and aspiration to do it. We can help with those things, but if we spoon feed, if we water down, in the end we don't do them any favors. I think that's sort of an assumption that we sometimes make-we think that students are lazier now than we were. I know at times I was pretty darn lazy. Certain semesters I struggled because I was interested in other things. So are these students. It's our responsibility to motivate them to get back on track. During a 4- or 5-year degree, or a 2-year Associate, you're going to have your ups and downs. If you have a faculty member who can see that and maybe provide a little twist or something to get you back on track, that would be a positive thing.

Berg: I think that sounds like a place to end. Before we do that, are there any other points you want to make?

Swail: Let me just mention a few things. You asked the role technology plays. We talked about email. There is also the technological ability to track students. That can become an early-warning system. I think institutions need to use such a system. We've talked a lot about advising and faculty involvement and the rest, and there are some technological tools to help us. Those should be used.

You asked the role of hybrid or online courses. As I said before, those can actually increase communication. I like the idea of hybrid courses because at least through email you have a record of their involvement. Where you can't always gauge that in the classroom, you sure can see if they're responding to online assignments. I think that's very effective. And those who are not involved-you can actually pinpoint those 25 students out of a 100-person class, email and say, "We did not get responses from you," and find out what's going on. It allows you to identify them pretty darn quickly.

Berg: When I track students, I sometimes send a note or an email if someone is falling behind. I usually send a note to students who don't come the first day of class try to convey that regular class attendance is important. But I hope the tone of the letter indicates they have a chance to redeem themselves.

Swail: I do want to add one thing regarding Dr. Gardner who focuses on the first year experience. I've written about this before. The first year experience is a tremendously important time. It is the first time that students are on their own, generally. The first six weeks in particular can be a scary emotional time for students. However, data from the National Center of Education Statistics tells that more students leave after the second, third and fourth years of the university degree than during the first year. While a large portion of students leave after the first year, we must be realistic that among low-income students and students of color, almost the same number leave after the second year and more after the third and fourth. This isn't a one-year issue for universities and community colleges. Focus on retention must be from the start to the finish and it must be ongoing. A lot of places just don't understand that. They think they'll just do the first year experience thing and they've got the problem whipped. Data clearly shows that this is simply not enough. It's important, but it's equally important to consider retention during the outgoing years. There are a number of issues that must be addressed. In outgoing years, I think finances become more of an issue at some institutions, especially students who have financial need. They can make it through one year, they can sometimes make it through two, but then their ability to obtain the funds-loans or otherwise-becomes limited, especially at higher-priced institutions. Also, for some, there are family issues. Again, they can take the burden for a year or so, but then the problems manifest in full force and they have to go home to help support family. My feeling is if a student gets halfway through the program, whether it's a two-year Associate or a four-year B.A., I think there's something criminal and sad that they can't get the rest of the way through. They've shown they can be there for that period of time. They fit in; they can make it. Whether they need additional financial resources or other social supports, an institution needs to work very, very hard to ensure that those students get through. The institution has given a commitment to that student upon enrollment saying, "We are here to serve you." If they can get through a couple of years, then the institution needs to come to the plate.

Steven L. Berg

Dr. Berg is Assistant Professor of English and History at Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Michigan.

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