HEP works with college/university presidents, institutional research, counseling, and first year experience, and student services staff to understand institution-specific retention and attrition trends and craft a best practice plan to improve student fit and graduation rates using retention factor analysis, and pre and post-matriculation analytical processes. HEP supports the college/university's retention program by the early prediction of at-risk students and by providing quantitative answers to why students leave during the first and second year. HEP, working with college/university personnel, uses best practices and controllable institutional retention factors to improve student retention and graduation.
Retention and Graduation Improvement Services
The Higher Education Practice, LLC…does something most don’t… we link together all your campus admissions, ERP, and student data to predict attrition and to improve retention, graduation, and institutional effectiveness.Improving retention and graduation requires an understanding of the complex interactions among students and institutional characteristics that often are difficult to unravel. Most institutions simply do not know or have the analytical tools to take effective action to improve retention while simultaneously improving institutional effectiveness. The Higher Education, LLC’s unique three-step approach to solving retention and graduation challenges, which we recommend implementing over two years, is outlined below. Please carefully read about these analytic tools and then contact Kenneth L. Hoyt, Ph.D. at klhoyt@HigherEdPractice.com or 908-310-6943 to schedule a conversation.
For most campuses facing retention challenges, the largest loss of new students occurs between their first and second year.
If you would like to improve student retention and graduation, The Higher Education Practice, LLC (HEP) can help, using a variety of state-of-the-art, best-practice analytical tools for--
Identify which incoming student characteristics (among 30-40) (e.g., recruiting source, recruiting timeline, unmet need, home state, ethnicity, intended major, SAT/ACT scores) are likely to lead to higher levels of attrition and develop profiles of successful students so you may improve future recruiting strategies;
Identify by name students who are most at-risk of not returning for their second year (and the reasons why) so you may design and employ an early intervention strategy to retain them; and
Improving Graduation Rates through Increasing Sophomore-to-Junior-Year Retention and Institutional Effectiveness (Post-Matriculation Analysis).
Identify through analysis which specific institutional and current student characteristics (among 40-50) (e.g., academic support, majors, courses, advising, residence halls, student activities, GPA) are likely to lead to higher levels of attrition and develop profiles of successful students so you may improve retention through improved services;
Identify by name sophomores who are at risk of not returning for their junior year and the reasons why; and
Implementing Strategic Change and Retention and Graduation Improvement (Factor Analysis).
Interview 30-50 high-student contact personnel on campus to determine their understanding of the 12 controllable institutional factors (e.g., role of faculty outside the classroom, the importance of social integration programming, existence of a welcoming environment, financial aid packaging) found in the literature to be involved in improving retention;
Through analysis, compare your institution to high performance peer and aspirant institutions to set measurable improvement objectives, and
Gain access to and implement HEP best practices for your faculty and staff to improve retention and graduation.