Student departure is a long-standing problem to colleges and universities. Approximately 45 percent of students enrolled in two-year colleges depart during their first year, and approximately one out of four students departs from a four-year college or university. The authors advance a serious revision of Tinto's popular interactionalist theory to account for student departure, and they postulate a theory of student departure in commuter colleges and universities. This volume delves into the literature to describe exemplary campus-based programs designed to reduce student departure. It emphasizes the importance of addressing student departure through a multidisciplinary approach, engaging the whole campus. It proposes new models for nonresidential students and students from diverse backgrounds, and suggests directions for further research. Academic and student affairs administrators seeking research-based approaches to understanding and reducing student departure will profit from reading this volume. Scholars of the college student experience will also find it valuable in defining new thrusts in research on the student departure process.

Drawing on studies funded by the Lumina Foundation, the nation's largest private foundation focused solely on increasing Americans' success in higher education, the authors revise current theories of college student departure, including Tinto's, making the important distinction between residential and commuter colleges and universities, and thereby taking into account the role of the external environment and the characteristics of social communities in student departure and retention. A unique feature of the authors' approach is that they also consider the role that the various characteristics of different states play in degree completion and first-year persistence. First-year college student retention and degree completion is a multi-layered, multi-dimensional problem, and the book's recommendations for state- and institutional-level policy and practice will help policy-makers and planners at all levels as well as anyone concerned with institutional retention rates—and helping students reach their maximum potential for success—understand the complexities of the issue and develop policies and initiatives to increase student persistence.

College student retention continues to be a top priority among colleges, universities, educators, federal and state legislatures, parents and students. While access to higher education is virtually universally available, many students who start in a higher education program do not complete the program or achieve their academic and personal goals. In spite of the programs and services colleges and universities have devoted to this issue, student retention and graduation rates have not improved considerably over time. College Student Retention: Formula for Student Success, Third Edition offers a solution to this vexing problem. It provides background information about college student retention issues and offers the educational community pertinent information to help all types of students succeed. The book lays out the financial implications and trends of retention. Current theories of retention, retention of online students, and retention in community colleges are also thoroughly discussed. Completely new to this edition are chapters that examine retention of minority and international students. Additionally, a formula for student success is provided which if colleges and universities implement student academic and personal goals may be attained.

Even as the number of students attending college has more than doubled in the past forty years, it is still the case that nearly half of all college students in the United States will not complete their degree within six years. It is clear that much remains to be done toward improving student success. For more than twenty years, Vincent Tinto’s pathbreaking book Leaving College has been recognized as the definitive resource on student retention in higher education. Now, with Completing College, Tinto offers administrators a coherent framework with which to develop and implement programs to promote completion. Deftly distilling an enormous amount of research, Tinto identifies the essential conditions enabling students to succeed and continue on within institutions. Especially during the early years, he shows that students thrive in settings that pair high expectations for success with structured academic, social, and financial support, provide frequent feedback and assessments of their performance, and promote their active involvement with other students and faculty. And while these conditions may be worked on and met at different institutional levels, Tinto points to the classroom as the center of student education and life, and therefore the primary target for institutional action. Improving retention rates continues to be among the most widely studied fields in higher education, and Completing College carefully synthesizes the latest research and, most importantly, translates it into practical steps that administrators can take to enhance student success.

Although access to higher education is virtually universally available, college student retention stills remains a vexing and puzzling problem for educators and legislators. In College Student Retention: Formula for Student Success, second edition, Alan Seidman deals with this problematic issue by examining a number of areas critical to the retention of students, including the history, the theories and concepts, models, and a standardized definition of the term. Seidman and his contributors also lay out the financial implications and trends of retention in one of their updated chapters. Completely new to this edition are three chapters that examine several recent issues: the current theories of retention, retention of online students, and retention in community colleges. Tying all of these components together, Seidman then presents his formula and highly successful model for student success that colleges can implement to effect change in retaining students and helping them to complete their academic and personal goals.

Receiving a college education has perhaps never been more important than it is today. While its personal, societal, and overall economic benefits are well documented, too many college students fail to complete their postsecondary education. As colleges and universities are investing substantial resources into efforts to counter these attrition rates and increase retention, they are mostly unaware of the robust literature on student success that is often bounded in disciplinary silos. The purpose of this book is to bring together in a single volume the extensive knowledge on college student success. It includes seven chapters from authors who each synthesize the literature from their own field of study, or perspective. Each describes the theories, models, and concepts they use; summarizes the key findings from their research; and provides implications for practice, policy, and/or research. The disciplinary chapters offer perspectives from higher education, public policy, behavioral economics, social psychology, STEM, sociology, and critical and post-structural theory.

The bestselling student affairs text, updated for today's evolving campus Student Services is the classic comprehensive text for graduate students in student affairs, written by top scholars and practitioners in the field. Accessible and theoretically grounded, this book reflects the realities of contemporary practice in student affairs. This new sixth edition has been updated throughout to align with current scholarship, and expanded with four new chapters on student development, crisis management, programming, and applications. Twenty new authors join the roster of expert contributors, bringing new perspective on critical issues such as ethical standards, campus culture, psychosocial development, student retention, assessment and evaluation, and much more. End-of-chapter questions help reinforce the material presented, and unique coverage of critical theoretical perspectives, counseling and helping skills, advising, leadership, environmental theories, and other useful topics make this book a foundational resource for those preparing for a student affairs career. The student affairs staff has the responsibility for a vast array of services and support roles for students on every type of campus. This book provides a thorough overview of the field's many facets, with invaluable real-world insight from leading practitioners. Understand the theoretical bases of development, learning, identity, and change Delve into the organizational frameworks vital to any institution Learn the historical context of higher education and the student affairs role Master essential competencies including professionalism, supervision, crisis management, and more As colleges and universities offer more and more services to an increasingly diverse student population, the responsibility for these programs falls to student affairs educators. The role requires a broad skill set, and conceptual grounding in a number of disciplines. Student Services provides the most complete overview of the foundations, philosophies, ethics, and theories that guide today's student affairs professional.