College Attrition at American Research Universities: Comparative Case Studies

College Attrition at American Research Universities: Comparative Case Studies

College Attrition at American Research Universities: Comparative Case Studies Joseph C. Hermanowicz The University of Georgia

Agathon Press New York

© 2003 by Agathon Press, an imprint of Algora Publishing. All Rights Reserved. www.algora.com No portion of this book (beyond what is permitted by Sections 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act of 1976) may be reproduced by any process, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without the express written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 0-87586-189-X (softcover) ISBN: 0-87586-190-3 (hardcover) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: 2003000306 Hermanowicz, Joseph C. College attrition at American research universities : comparative case studies / by Joseph C. Hermanowicz. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-87586-190-3 (hard) — ISBN 087586189X (soft : alk. paper) 1. College attendance—United States—Case studies. 2. Universities and colleges—United States—Case studies. 3. Research institutes—United States—Case studies. I. Title. LC148.2.H47 2003 378.1'619—dc21 2003000306

Printed in the United States

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

1

Research Universities

4

Interaction and School Organization: A Contextual View 1. DESIGN AND METHODS

6 15

The Schools

15

The Data

18

2. THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF ATTRITION

23

Gender, Race, and Ethnic Profile

24

Academic Profile

27

Financial Profile

35

Summary

36

3. THE PROCESS OF ATTRITION

41

Departure Timing

42

Departure Reasons

43

The Character of the Departure Process

48

Interaction

58

Students’ Re-assessments

62

Summary

64

4. STRUCTURE AND CULTURE OF RETENTION A Retention Success Story: Case in View

69 70

Cultural Attributes of Schools and Success

75

Summary

78 VII

5. LEAVING RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES

83

Summary and Discussion

83

Generalizability

90

Lessons from a Contextual View

92

APPENDIX

95

Interview Protocol

97

REFERENCES

101

VIII

for Nancy Thorgerson in loving memory

Acknowledgements The institutions on which this work is based, while all selective research universities, stand apart physically by hundreds of miles. The students whose voices we will hear about having left these schools speak from locales still further distant, dotting the country from the Texas basin to coastal Maine. This research would not have been possible, therefore, without the cooperation of many people, in many places, over many months. I wish to thank the universities and their staffs—registrars, deans, vice presidents, and provosts—who were part of this study and who were exceedingly responsive to providing information, materials, and data dealing with their schools and students. In turn, I thank those students, nearly all—as it turned out—terribly eager to help in this work and who inevitably form its flesh. Between the students, their schools, and staffs, these helpful individuals number nearly 150. While all have been privately acknowledged individually, my thanks here must remain anonymous. Several scholars provided insightful comments and suggestions at critical junctures in the development of this work. I thank John Braxton, Linda Grant, and Richard Ingersoll for their flair at constructive reading and discussion of the study. I owe special thanks to Jeff Slovak, who helped make this work possible. The Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia has provided a rich haven and source of academic sustenance. I thank its members, and in particular Del Dunn and Scott Thomas, in whom one finds incomparable models of university colleagues. Finally, while this work has emerged from lengthy discussion among people nationwide, none of its findings or conclusions are presented as official viewpoints of particular institutions or individuals. All responsibility for the content of this work is borne solely by the author.

Tables 1.

Four-Year and Five-Year Graduation Rates, Cohorts 1986-1990

2.

Classification of Research Universities

3.

Gender Proportions of “Leavers”, by School

4.

Racial/Ethnic Proportions of “Leavers”, by School

5.

Characteristics of Academic Performance, by Gender and School

6.

Characteristics of Academic Performance, by Race/Ethnicity and School

7.

Correlations between Academic Performance and Race/Ethnicity, by School

8.

Distribution of Financial Aid, by Type and School

9.

Leavers’ Length of Stay by School, in Terms

10. Length of Time to Decide to Leave by School, in Terms 11. Reasons for Leaving, by School 12. Reasons for Leaving, by Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and School 13. Institutions that “Leavers” Now Attend, by School 14. Characteristics of School Cultures that Facilitate and Impede Retention

INTRODUCTION Everyone who has come in contact with American higher education, whether their relationship has been brief and fleeting or long-lived and intimate, has been exposed to one of the few phenomena shared by the more than 3500 motley schools in the system: college attrition. Parents, friends, relatives, high school teachers and guidance counselors, college administrators, faculty and advisors all know attrition, albeit from different vantage points. They know attrition not necessarily by the cold-blooded statistics (though some may) but more probably by the warm-blooded stories of students who have experienced college departure, those whose vantage points are undoubtedly the most direct and personal. There is indeed irony in the thought that the failure to educate is the single principal attribute binding schools together in the highly differentiated system we call education. While schools do educate, and do so in relatively large numbers, and thus produce and transmit knowledge as their function prescribes, they do so in proudly different ways that yield different outcomes and identities, both collective and individual. When schools lose students, they fail, and their outcome and identity are one. A leading scholar of attrition has put the problem in perspective: More students leave their college or university prior to degree completion than stay. Of the nearly 2.4 million students who in 1993 entered higher education for the first time, over 1.5 million will leave their first institution without receiving a degree. Of those, approximately 1.1 million will leave higher education altogether, without ever completing either a two- or a four-year degree program (Tinto 1993 [1987]:1) (for full citations, see “References”).

1

College Attrition at American Research Universities

While attrition is felt universally by schools, there is far from a universal rate at which they feel it. It is in rates of attrition and not the sheer phenomenon where variety takes its familiar place among American colleges and universities. Some schools have six-year graduation rates lower than 50 percent (e.g., University of New Mexico, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), some closer to 75 percent (e.g., New York University, University of Rochester), and others closer to, but still distant from, 100 percent (e.g., Yale University, University of Pennsylvania). According to U.S. News and World Report, the top five schools with the highest six-year graduation rates are: Princeton University (97%); Harvard University (96%); Dartmouth College (95%); Brown University (94%); and Duke University (94%). Among the schools with the lowest six-year graduation rates are: Texas Southern University (10%); University of AlaskaFairbanks (24%); University of New Orleans (25%); University of Texas-El Paso (26%); and Wichita State University (29%) (U.S. News and World Report, 2003). In general, private, selective schools have lower attrition rates, while public, “open-door” schools have higher attrition rates. Yet this is an oversimplification. Even within school types, whether prestigious four-year colleges, comprehensive schools, selective research universities, or some other type, attrition rates differ substantially (ibid.). Among selective research universities — the type that will be of primary interest in this monograph — some schools, such as those noted above, approach perfect retention. Others do noticeably more poorly: Columbia University typically graduates no more than 85 percent of its students after five years, and the University of Chicago does even less well, typically graduating no more than 80 percent of its students after five years (COFHE 1990, 1992, 1996). While graduation rates of around 80 percent are high relative to all postsecondary schools, they are low within the organizational niche of America’s selective research universities. And while officials at some schools might be satisfied with a graduation rate of around 80 percent — despite the room for improvement — officials at the research universities where this work was done and where these rates arise, are less than content. What accounts for these niche differences, and what ultimately can be done to improve the performance of schools and that of students who attend them? The research reported herein was launched to address this question. The study emerged out of interest on the part of officials at four major U.S. research universities to more fully understand attrition at their schools. These four

2

Introduction schools — representative on several dimensions of selective research universities in the United States — form the basis of the research. The research proceeded with the recognition that an understanding of “niche differences” in attrition and possible solutions to it is deepened when two key conditions hold: (1) when attrition is viewed comparatively between schools; and, (2) when the method of research permits depth of detail in examining how and why attrition occurs in these schools, allowing the viewer to see the people and processes behind the many statistics gathered in previous studies of attrition (cf. American College Testing Program 1996; Astin 1971, 1975, 1993; Beal and Noel 1980). A single school alone can reveal insights about attrition, and many such singular case studies have been compiled, particularly of relatively unselective institutions (e.g., Blanchfield 1971; Johansson and Rossmann 1973; Lavin, Murtha, and Kaufman 1984; Matchett 1988). But several schools, when examined in detail, allow a view of patterns that may be peculiar to some schools and general to others. Like people, then, schools are cast in greater light when compared and contrasted with others that possess similar and different symptomatic characteristics and different strategies for contending with these symptoms. The dimensions along which the universities in this study speak to other schools, then, consist of the symptoms of dysfunction — measured in this case by rates of attrition — that can be found in comparable degrees across higher education institutions. In addition, by emphasizing a “person-oriented” approach in the method of research (see Settersten 1999:212-214) — in which the people and processes of attrition come to light amid the numbers — it may be possible to more readily ascertain student and school characteristics under which college departure takes place. As will be described later, much of the data on which this work is based come from interviews with students who have left college. Their accounts put a human face on attrition. Most important, they offer direct evidence and insight into how and why attrition occurs in schools and why rates vary among schools belonging to the same organizational locale. This work thus aims to provide an in-depth look at selective research universities, attending to the ways in which their similarities and differences establish conditions for the variation in attrition we observe among them.

3

College Attrition at American Research Universities Research Universities Research universities comprise just 3 percent of all higher education institutions in the U.S. (Carnegie Commission on Higher Education 1994). Yet while small as a proportion of all schools, research universities graduate fully one-third of all undergraduates in the country (U.S. Department of Education 1999). Within the population of colleges and universities, America’s selective research institutions do among the best in graduating students they admit. But in absolute terms, attrition rates at research universities make clear that there is considerable room for improvement; the number of students who each year enter research universities and leave without receiving a degree reaches into the tens of thousands (COFHE 1996). This trend is particularly troublesome in light of the high costs associated with, and the large investments both schools and students make toward, collegiate education. The trend raises a perplexing issue. Selective schools invest significant time, effort, and money in applying their selective criteria to the students who apply for admission. In turn, students who court these such schools, for the most part, invest significant time, effort, and money in selecting which of these (or other) schools to attend. Recent studies have empirically documented the investments of time and money that selective schools and selective students make in order to be selective (Clotfelter 1996; Hossler, Schmit, and Vesper 1999; Katchadourian and Boli 1994). Why would such care taken by schools and students result in high attrition at some of these institutions? In light of the mutual investment, it seems unlikely that the answer could lie in poor choice or ill fit, although those factors are frequently cited as common causes of attrition (Tinto 1993 [1987]). A more pressing point consists of how research universities are publicly perceived as treating undergraduate education. In its report, the Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University suggested that undergraduate education needs to be “reinvented” (Boyer Commission 1998). Motivated by the claim that undergraduates at the nation’s research universities are short-changed, the Commission argued in favor of expanding learning opportunities for undergraduates, marshalling greater faculty commitment to undergraduate education, and re-directing resources that would effectively place collegiate education in a more central role in major schools of higher learning. A host of earlier studies have similarly criticized the neglect of undergraduate education in the research university setting (e.g., Boyer

4

Introduction 1987, 1990; Kennedy 1997; Keohane 1993; Prewitt 1993). While this criticism is common, the problem is rarely addressed in any sustained way. College attrition can be interpreted as a fundamental consequence of neglect by research universities. Failure to address attrition would only make them — and researchers — more neglectful. Over four decades of research have demonstrated the substantial benefits of college attendance and degree completion (Eckaus 1973; Feldman and Newcomb 1969; Juster 1975; Solman and Taubman 1973; Withey 1971). The advantages are convincingly multifaceted, encompassing demonstrable gains in cognitive development; social skills; attitudes, values, and moral orientations; subjective quality of life; career choice; and economic well-being (Becker 1975; Leslie and Brinkman 1988; Pascarella and Terenzini 1991). Additional work has investigated the various human returns — social, psychological, and economic — found in students who attend selective institutions. Predicated overwhelmingly on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital (Bourdieu 1971, 1973, 1977), this work has suggested how the elite mores of group life in selective institutions work to enhance both the intellectual development and the socioeconomic standing of students who are admitted, socialized, and graduated from them (Berger 2000; Cookson and Persell 1985; Hoxby 2002; Katchadourian and Boli 1994; Tinto 1980; Willis 1977). By extension, the costs of leaving selective institutions without a degree are high, since students leave not just without a diploma but without the force of a socialization process that installs the particular cultural capital that is exchanged for scarcely-distributed human benefits in later life. Yet for the substantial costs at stake, attrition at selective schools is an under-researched phenomenon. Few case studies of attrition at selective institutions have been published. This is most likely true because such studies — to the extent they exist — are intended primarily for internal institutional audiences and because officials at these schools have typically taken a secretive stance toward data on their students and institutions. Next to no comparative work, encompassing a range of selective research institutions, has been completed, most likely for similar reasons. Outside of these institutions, it is may also be the case that most researchers, like most people, believe selective schools enjoy ancillary characteristics — high prestige, large endowments, public visibility, and the like — without costs or interior problems. Yet many officials at these schools, as this work itself testifies, think otherwise. They often are as concerned about attrition in their schools as officials at other institutions. The

5

College Attrition at American Research Universities comparatively high public standing and reception of their institutions may even compel a heightened awareness on their part about problems that can potentially detract from their lofty institutional images. Vincent Tinto has suggested that cures to attrition vary across schools, as students and their special needs themselves vary from one type of school to another (Tinto 1993 [1987]). In other words, there is thought to be no universally effective antidote. If we accept this view, there are benefits to limiting our focus to one type of school. We maximize the depth of inquiry about the conditions and processes of attrition within one sector, cognizant that these conditions and processes perhaps vary among school types. But while research universities are of one type, they are not of one kind (Clark 1987). They often possess different structures and communicate different cultures, manifested in their distinctive institutional identities. Structurally and culturally, some may be more akin to (if not exist as) the liberal arts college or the public state university than to a perceived ideal-typical research university. In attrition rates alone, research universities exemplify a mix, and part of that mix resembles schools that comprise other types within the larger system of higher education. While research universities are our focus, and while the study of their attrition will shed the greatest light on them, it is also likely to inform our understanding of the context and process of attrition at many other schools, both similar and different. If this study expands our view of how attrition operates within research universities, its primary goal will have been met. If this work advances our knowledge of attrition at a variety of schools, it will exceed its original expectations.

Interaction and School Organization: A Contextual View This work has a clear education policy orientation because most schools, and perhaps most students, wish to make strides toward higher rates of student retention. The work is also oriented to theory about attrition. This work aims to provide a theoretical account of the attrition phenomenon as it occurs in U.S. research institutions. In doing so, it seeks to better understand and explain attrition in this sector, or context, of the higher education system and advance discussion and debate about attrition’s causes and cures, sensitive to how those causes and cures may be contingent upon the organizational setting in which they are found and employed.

6

Introduction Research conducted by the Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE), an umbrella group of thirty-one selective colleges and universities, has repeatedly found a single variable that is most strongly correlated with retention: admissions selectivity, where selectivity is measured by the ratio of admission offers to applications received (COFHE 1990, 1992, 1996). The more selective an institution, the higher its graduation rate. The correlation likely results from a combination of institutional and individual factors: schools select students who are the most likely to succeed, as measured by past performance, and students select schools that through their prestige are most able to assure success, as measured by the subsequent life attainments of alumni. Relative to all institutions, the risks at highly selective schools are low, minimized by the lack of failure of students they admit and the perception by students that these schools are themselves short on failure and long on success. Writing in the COFHE reports, Larry Litten has offered several interrelated hypotheses to account for institutional differentiation in attrition and retention (COFHE 1990, 1992, 1996). Five specific hypotheses are identified: the selectivity hypothesis: the more selective an institution, the more likely students are to identify with and succeed at the institution; the positive start hypothesis: students who are at their first-choice school are more likely to stay and graduate than are students not at their first-choice school; the social status hypothesis: students are more likely to persist at prestigious schools, even despite a desire to leave or a lack of fulfillment and personal growth, because departure would be interpreted by others as a sign of failure; the superior benefits hypothesis: the long-term benefits to be gained from graduating at a selective school outweigh the short-term costs; and, the first-and-final hurdle hypothesis: the demands made upon students at the most selective schools are less than those made at less selective schools — admission-to is more difficult than graduation-from an institution (COFHE 1990). It is unclear, however, whether selectivity alone accounts for the success schools see (or fail to see) in retention. Other factors not directly associated with selectivity can in principle come into play. For example, schools may have in place particular structures or programs to facilitate retention. They may also have specific cultures whose normative patterns promote persistence. What is more, most schools cannot afford or are otherwise unable to be more selective than they are presently. They may rely on their applicant base to

7

College Attrition at American Research Universities survive, or their missions specifically open themselves to a wide regional, state, or national college-going populous. Selectivity for these schools becomes a moot point. No less significant, while the most prestigious schools are most able to tamper with selectivity to realize gains in retention, it is not necessarily the only variable at these schools with which to tamper productively. Selectivity does not necessarily lead to a more desirable student population; schools can be and are selective in varieties of ways. The hypotheses above serve as important guides in addressing attrition, and will be used here to help map its possible causes and cures. But they likely guide us through only part of the puzzle to be solved. The hypotheses stress the structural sides of schools, such as admissions and prestige, but then only partly: other structures relevant to attrition and retention, such as advising staff and residential units, require attention. Importantly, the cultural sides of schools, the norms and values that guide communities, also cannot be overlooked, for they too may be found to exert significant effects on students’ desires to leave or to stay in school. In short, more detail is needed to provide, if not a definitive picture, then a fuller and more suggestive one concerning the context and process by which attrition occurs across schools. Tinto’s major theoretic perspective on attrition has arguably enjoyed the most influence in the field of attrition research. His work on the topic spans three decades, out of which the leading treatise, Leaving College: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Attrition, emerged in 1987. As Braxton, Sullivan, and Johnson (1997) observe, the influence of Tinto’s theory may be indexed by its over 400 citations and 170 dissertations by the mid-1990s. Multifaceted and complex, Tinto’s theory may be summarized as follows. For Tinto, college attrition results from interactions between students and their educational environments. College persistence is a function of the match between students’ motivation and academic ability and a school’s academic and social characteristics. Other factors being equal, this match between individual and institution determines two core individual commitments: a commitment to completing college and a commitment to a student’s respective institution (Tinto 1993 [1987]). The greater the commitment on both counts early in the college career, the greater likelihood of completion at the college in which a student first enrolls. Two key concepts follow to distinguish Tinto’s perspective: academic integration and social integration. Academic integration refers to the extent of congruence between students’ intellectual ability, involvement, and

8

Introduction performance on the one hand and a school’s intellectual expectations on the other. Social integration refers to the extent of congruence between individual students and a college social system, which includes interpersonal and extracurricular involvements and attachments, among other facets of college social life (Tinto 1993 [1987]). In short, the more academically and socially integrated, the less likely students are to leave, precisely because of the density of attachments that keep them in school. Tinto’s theory is interactionist in that it emphasizes the nature and quality of contact students and schools come to establish with each other. The theory may be compared and contrasted to other theories of attrition, less central to the present discussion, that are psychological or economic in their explanatory emphases (for a review, see Braxton, Sullivan, and Johnson 1997; and Tinto 1993 [1987]). Tinto’s theory has been said to be near-paradigmatic in its status among attrition perspectives (Braxton, Sullivan, and Johnson 1997), and it is used as the major organizing frame of reference in much attrition work, including that here. Tinto’s theory — like all theories — has not escaped criticism, however (e.g., Attinasi 1989, 1994; Cabrera et. al. 1992; Cabrera, Nora, and Castenada 1993). Among its contributions are newly identified points of departure to break new empirical and theoretic ground in attempting to solve what has been called the complex “departure puzzle” (Braxton 2000a). The criticism of Tinto’s perspective centers on the level of empirical support for its theoretic claims. Braxton, Sullivan, and Johnson (1997) derive fifteen propositions from Tinto’s theory but, in reviewing empirical studies based on Tinto’s approach, find minimal support for the theoretic assertions. Scholars have begun emphasizing the need to examine the theoretical and empirical disjunctures in Tinto’s approach by testing propositions in the theory directly (e.g., Braxton and Lien 2000) and by offering different theoretic perspectives altogether, including those, as noted previously, that treat college culture (and not exclusively structure) as consequential for attrition (e.g., Kuh and Love 2000). Tinto’s theory of attrition raises problems for the present analysis. While interactionist, Tinto’s perspective is decontextual: students are abstractions in an abstract process that has been removed from the institutional settings in which attrition takes place. The theory asserts that interaction between student and college environment is consequential, but we have yet to ascertain how such interaction transpires, if at all, for students who leave. What character do

9

College Attrition at American Research Universities interactions have for students who have embarked, knowingly or not, on the road to attrition from their schools? With whom do they interact, with what frequency, and what is the content of this interaction? Does the nature of interaction vary where attrition rates vary, and if so, what propels the different modes of interaction and their consequent effects? What is more, we do not know if such interaction is organizationally constrained by the types of colleges students attend. In principle, interaction would be so constrained, since varying institutional structures and cultures (even those found within one school type) are posited to exert different student effects. But it remains unclear how these organizational differences are expressed in the attrition process and by students who undergo it. It is perhaps surprising that few attrition studies actually make substantial use of students’ accounts of departure. Most attrition research is quantitative, often seeking statistical models that portray and attempt to predict attrition, as documented in studies that have codified the major empirical inquiries on attrition (Braxton, Sullivan, and Johnson, 1997; Terenzini and Pascarella, 1980). Comparatively little discussion and interviewing has been conducted with actual students who have left their institutions. Exceptions are of course those exchanges between students and advisors or deans that may occur as “exit interviews” at some institutions, but these fall short of the systematic design that would be necessary for research purposes. In the end, student voices are rarely heard in data presentations and analyses of attrition. Students’ accounts offer “a view from the inside.” They likely inform an understanding about how attrition "works,” indicating the ways students interact with, experience and come to perceive the organizations in which attrition occurs. Knowing how attrition “works” (or transpires) in one school and how it is short-circuited in another, as an in-depth comparative study would allow, informs current theory and practice. It also would identify potential areas for effective intervention. Thus, this work “brings organizations in” to the analysis as a result of an explicit need to view attrition in its processual context — how attrition actually occurs from start to finish in a given school setting (cf. Baron and Bielby 1980; Hirsch and Lounsbury 1997; Kallebery 1989; Stolzenberg 1978). The present analysis emphasizes institutional context and will offer what may be called a “contextual perspective.” This perspective, while sensitive to the role that interactions play in forming student-school attachments, underscores the necessity of looking at organizational form — the cultural and structural arrangements of schools where interaction allegedly occurs,

10

Introduction and which help to explain how and who gets through. In its effort to understand schools for their mediating role in the attrition process, this work bridges an organizational perspective with Tinto’s interactionist one, an objective identified in recent work in the field (Braxton 2000b; Braxton, Sullivan, and Johnson 1997; Tinto 1993 [1987]). By operationalizing that perspective with students and their accounts, this work departs from quantitatively-oriented work by presenting a more “person-oriented” view. From this view, the qualitative details about the people and processes of attrition come into fuller light. This monograph has five chapters. In chapter 1, I discuss the research design and methods used for the study. In chapter 2, I examine the social context of attrition by discussing the demographic make-up of students who leave compared to students who stay in the four schools. In chapter 3, I closely explore the process of attrition, uncovering how it actually unfolds based upon data furnished by the people who have undergone it. In tapping into this process, I reveal the timing, reasons, and interaction patterns that structure the attrition process in each of the schools. In chapter 4, I discuss the institutional conditions that foster retention in the schools, focusing on the schools’ structural and cultural elements that give rise to their varying attrition rates. I will in this chapter pay particular attention to one of the four schools in the study, highlighting school attributes that facilitate its comparatively high retention. Finally, in chapter 5 I will summarize the results and suggest possible strategies germane to off-setting attrition in these schools and in schools generally. I will close by discussing the lessons learned from this “contextual view” of college attrition, underscoring the ways in which it can advance discussion and debate about this phenomenon’s causes and cures.

11

CHAPTER I

DESIGN AND METHODS

The Schools To achieve the goal of acquiring more contextual detail about attrition, this research was designed to maximize depth of analysis. It is based on four case studies of selective research universities. While the study calls upon both quantitative and qualitative data on these schools and their students to examine attrition, the qualitative data assume a more central role because of the insights they proved to shed. In order to examine attrition as manifests differently across research universities, the four schools in the study were selected on the basis of their differing graduation rates. In rough terms, the study was designed to include “high”, “middle”, and “low” performers to tease out similarities and differences among them. Taking rates for 1990, the closest year for which data were available at the time of the study, School 1 is the “high performer”, with a five-year graduation rate of 92.2 percent; School 2 is the “middle performer”, with a fiveyear graduation rate of 84.1 percent; School 3 is the “low performer”, with a fiveyear graduation rate of 79.2 percent. These three schools represent the distribution of attrition rates among the population of selective research universities, with mid-90 graduation rates on the high end and low-80 graduation rates on the low end (COFHE 1996). The specific schools in the sample were included not only because they satisfied the design of the research by “fitting” one of the high-middle-low performance levels, but also because administrative officials at these schools expressed an interest in the study. These officials normally included deans for 15

College Attrition at American Research Universities student affairs or people in like positions, vice-provosts, and provosts. They agreed to participate in the study with the expectation that it would, given its comparative design, yield important and tangible results and because in three of the cases (schools 2, 3, and 4) officials were actively concerned that their attrition rates were too high and in need of concrete remedy. They agreed to participate also on the condition that school and individual student identities would remain anonymous; hence the use of numerical designations for the institutions. Initial contact people at these schools normally designated other staff, such as their university registrar or student service personnel, to assist in providing data used in the study, and an overall cooperative working relationship was established with them. Schools 1-3 are private research universities. They are akin to universities such as Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and the University of Chicago. School 4 is a public research university whose “eliteness” resembles the other three schools. It is akin to universities such as California — Berkeley, Wisconsin — Madison, and Michigan. School 4 has a five-year graduation rate near School 3’s, at 80.8 percent. But what kind of performer is School 4? Compared to private research universities, School 4’s attrition rate falls in the bottom quarter, making it a low performer. But compared to public research universities, School 4’s attrition rate falls in the top quarter, that is, it’s a high performer. School 4 was included in the study to add comparative insight: it performs better than many of its public peers and comes to resemble private research universities. Viewed from the opposite lens, several private research universities resemble large public universities (in their rates of attrition and in other ways), yet both sets of schools often see themselves serving different clientele and performing different functions. This similarity is of interest to administrators and education policy officials as well as to scholars. The causes of similarity (in attrition) amidst difference (in clientele, mission, and the like) is a matter of both practical and theoretic importance. In light of this complexity, School 4 shall be referred to as a special performer. The attrition rates at the four schools have been relatively stable over the recent past. Table 1 presents the four-year and five-year graduation rates for each school over the five year period between 1986 and 1990.

16

Design and Methods Table 1. Four-Year and Five-Year Graduation Rates, Cohorts 1986-19901 School 1

School 2

Cohort

4-Year Rate

5-Year Rate

Cohort

4-Year Rate

5-Year Rate

1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

87.5 86.0 88.4 87.3 85.4

94.5 94.0 94.7 93.0 92.22

1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

75.4 78.2 77.0 75.9 74.3

83.7 86.7 85.6 84.3 84.12

Cohort

4-Year Rate

5-Year Rate

Cohort

4-Year Rate

5-Year Rate

1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

62.9 63.8 63.0 61.2 61.3

82.7 82.7 82.9 82.2 80.8

School 3

1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

School 4

70.4 79.3 77.6 85.2 75.4 82.7 75.2 80.4 72.9 79.23 1 Source: Consortium on Financing Higher Education 2Source: Institution's Office of Institutional Research 3 Source: Institution's Office of the University Registrar

While the respective rates at each school have generally stayed the same, five-year rates are noticeably higher than four-year rates, particularly at School 4, and this is a widespread, national pattern (Porter 1990a). Six-year rates will in turn be higher than five-year rates, at these and at all schools, but the difference in rates beyond six years typically becomes marginal. After six years, college for most traditional college-age students yet to receive a degree becomes a thing of the past (Porter 1990a). Conforming to Litten’s hypotheses discussed in the Introduction (COFHE 1990, 1992, 1996), the four schools also vary in their admissions selectivity, and their selectivity is negatively correlated with attrition. Thus School 1, the most selective of the four, exhibits the lowest rate of attrition, while schools 3 and 4, the least selective of the four, exhibit the highest attrition; School 2, more selective than both schools 3 and 4 but less selective than School 1, exhibits a middle level of attrition. A classification summary of these attributes is presented in Table 2. Table 2. Classification of Research Universities

School 1 2 3 4

Graduation Rate1 92% 84 79 813

Selectivity2 18% 21 58 68

1

Performer High Middle Low Special

Five-year graduation rate for 1990; figures are rounded to nearest whole number. Source: Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE 1996). 2 Measure includes test scores (40 percent); high school class standing (35 percent); acceptance rate (15 percent); and yield (10 percent). Data are for 1996. Source: U.S. News and World Report (1998). 3Source: University’s Office of the Registrar.

17

College Attrition at American Research Universities

A positive correlation between selectivity and retention is evident in the data in Table 2. But the table also suggests, as stressed above, that more than selectivity affects a school’s graduation rate: the difference in graduation rates at schools 1 and 2 is substantial (eight percent), but their difference in selectivity is small (two percent). Comparing schools 3 and 4, the difference in graduation rates is small (three percent), but their difference in selectivity is substantial (ten percent). In short, while past research has underscored the centrality of selectivity in retention (Astin 1971; COFHE 1990, 1992, 1996), selectivity seems far from being a “silver bullet” — a variable that makes or breaks retention in its entirety — so that we need to inquire further. Four schools, and not some other number, were included in the study in order to be suit the theoretic motivations of the research. These motivations, discussed in the previous chapter, are predicted on the need for depth of detail in analysis, attending specifically to how attrition processes might vary among schools of a type. In order to be comparative and thus to cast greater light on schools than a single case would allow, clearly more than one school must be included in the sample. But including too many schools in the sample would undermine our ability to capture depth within cases. Thus, the design called for a balancing of the need for case comparison and the need for case depth. To cover the range of variation in attrition rates at selective research universities, the “high,” “middle,” “low,” and “special” designations were adopted, yielding the four cases. The Data The data for this study come from four sources: • demographic data from each of the schools on students who leave and those who stay; • telephone interviews with students who have left each of the schools; • telephone interviews with key administrators and staff who are directly involved with attrition and retention at each of the schools; • and a site visit to one of the schools (School 1) in which ethnographic work and additional interviews were conducted. As part of the site visit, the author dined and lived among undergraduates for three days; talked informally with college students and interviewed them on a more structured basis; interviewed faculty and administrative staff who are directly in or related to advising and residential arenas of the university; and collected

18

Design and Methods relevant informational materials created and used by the university on “life at School 1.” Of the four data sources, the interviews with college leavers assumed the most central role in the study for two major reasons. First, most studies of attrition rely heavily on quantitative demographic profiles of students (e.g., Astin 1971, 1975; Porter 1990b) or embark on major theoretic objectives, absent of empirical analysis (e.g., Tinto 1993 [1987]). While providing a picture of students who leave and the patterns of their withdrawals, the picture is necessarily blurred by the lack of finer-grained detail offered by interview data. Second, interview data, by tapping the detailed meanings students assign to leaving college, uncovers the process of college departure most directly. Interviews thus afford the best possible position from which to ascertain how students become leavers, shedding light on how their moral status and identity are progressively changed. In so doing, we learn what thinking is involved and not involved in deciding to leave or to stay in school, along with the interaction patterns and actions taken and not taken in the course of such contemplation. The interview protocol had eight parts and is presented in the appendix. Five parts (sections A-E) dealt explicitly with the departure process — understanding when, how, and why students decided to leave and what interaction they had with faculty, advisors (as separate from faculty), and residential staff in thinking through their decision to leave or to stay. The remaining three parts of the protocol (sections F-H) dealt with students’ reassessments of their decisions and reflection on what might have aided in staying in school; their current status and activities; and an open-ended concluding section that allowed students to add, elaborate, and/or clarify important points. A uniform protocol was used for each of the schools, but specific terms were occasionally changed to comply with local meanings and usage (e.g., “advisor” at School 1 was changed to “dean” at School 2, etc.). A total of ninety leavers were interviewed: 10 from School 1; 25 from School 2; 30 from School 3; and 25 from School 4. Interviews with School 3 leavers were done first, during the fall of 1997, as part of a single case study. Subsequently the project expanded into the current comparative set of case studies. Interviews at the other three schools were completed between the fall of 1998 and the winter of 1999. Thirty interviews were done with former School 3 students, and not more, because a “saturation point” had been reached. That is, interview data began to repeat itself in a systematically predictable fashion. The same principle held for

19

College Attrition at American Research Universities the number of interviews done subsequently of former School 2 and School 4 students. Only ten School 1 interviews were conducted because the pool from which to select was necessarily small, School 1 having the lowest attrition rate of the four universities. Designated officials at each of the schools furnished the lists of leavers. The lists were of students who entered college in either 1994, 1995, or 1996 and who withdrew by the fall of 1997. This time frame was established so that interviewees could talk about their experience when it was relatively fresh in their minds. In addition, the lists were of students who left unambiguously. The lists included only those students whose registrations were completely cancelled. Most schools use numerous categories of leavers to calculate attrition, such as students who take temporary leaves of absence, students who are on academic probation, and so forth, but these students are not of central interest here. Of central interest here are those students who leave a school without the intention of returning to that school, the group of students who in greatest proportion consist of those who have unambiguously withdrawn. All of the interviews were conducted by the author and lasted an average of twenty minutes. All but one of the interviews were tape-recorded, and all of these were transcribed and coded for analysis. (A former School 2 student declined to participate in the interview in its entirety, but engaged in a brief unrecorded dialogue about the nature of his departure.) Students were assured that their identities would remain anonymous and were encouraged to speak candidly about the experiences that motivated their withdrawals. They were told that the information they could share would be important to understand students’ experiences more fully and that such information could help solve problems that might exist for college students at their former institution. Moreover, they were assured that their participation was completely voluntary, and that if they chose to participate in an interview, they should also feel free to ask me questions about the interview or the study more generally. In short, interviews were socially defined as an occasion to be frank. Students were exceedingly receptive to the study. Most of the students expressed an eagerness to be part of the project and to share their experiences, which proved to be a research finding in itself. Since their departures, no one from their schools had contacted them. For nearly all of the students, this study presented the first and only time to recall, recount, and reflect upon their experiences in any systematic fashion, in response to questions that reflected an interest in what they had to say.

20

CHAPTER II

THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF ATTRITION Demographic data on students’ gender, race/ethnicity, academic performance and finances help to place attrition in social context. In principle, these demographic elements can exert independent effects on attrition. Attention to them will thus show what role, if any, they play in the departure process. We attend to these demographic characteristics as they apply to students situated in the research universities under study. Yet any one or all of these characteristics could, in principle, exert independent effects on attrition found in a variety of schools. One might argue that factors such as finances and academic performance play more of a role in attrition in schools that are especially costly or especially demanding academically. But these are, of course, relative variables. Subjectively, many schools for many people are difficult and costly. In this respect, while the data presented in this chapter speak most directly about research universities and their students, they also speak generally to a broad institutional audience. In what follows, data on these demographic characteristics are presented for three groups: • the interviewed subset of leavers in the four schools; • the population of leavers in the four schools from which the interviewees came; and, • the larger school cohorts of students of which all leavers were a part. Comparisons among these groups will allow us to assess whether the above characteristics mark leavers and stayers differently in these schools.

23

College Attrition at American Research Universities Gender, Race, and Ethnic Profile Table 3 presents the gender composition of leavers by school, together with the gender composition of the larger school cohorts. Table 3. Gender Proportions of “Leavers”, by School School l

School 2

Male

Female

Total

Male

Female

Total

52

41

93

84

83

167

55.9%

44.1%

100%

50.3%

49.7%

100%

5

5

10

9

16

25

50.0%

50.0%

100%

36.0%

64.0%

100%

College

2067

2013

4080

1905

1548

3453

(Cohorts ‘94-‘96)

50.7%

49.3%

100%

55.2%

44.8%

100%

Population

Sample

School 3

School 4

Male

Female

Total

Male

Female

Total

68

59

127

378

336

714

53.5%

46.5%

100%

53.0%

47.0%

100%

14

16

30

14

11

25

46.7%

53.3%

100%

56.0%

47.0%

100°/a

College

1543

1335

2878

7595

7649

15244

(Cohorts ‘94-‘96)

53.6%

46.4%

100%

49.8%

50.2%

100%

Population

Sample

Generally, men are no more likely than women to leave any one of these schools, and vice versa. Men and women leave in roughly equal proportions, and where the proportions differ, they do so marginally. Moreover, the samples of

24

The Social Context of Attrition leavers roughly approximates the leaver population proportions in the schools, although in the case of School 2 the sample is skewed toward women (64 percent). While these data show that attrition afflicts genders evenly, men and women can, of course, elect to leave colleges for systematically different reasons and their processes of departure may differ — issues treated in the next chapter. Table 4 presents the racial/ethnic composition of leavers against the larger cohorts of students in the four schools. Table 4. Racial/Ethnic Proportions of “Leavers”, by School Population Sample

White

Black

42 45.2% 6

14 15.1% 2

Asian/ Pac. Is. 14 15.1% 0

2184

20.0% 331

53.5%

8.1%

19.6%

White

Black

94 56.3% 16

7 4.2% 2

Asian/ Pac. Is. 21 12.6% 3

8.0% 260 7.5%

60.0% College (Cohorts ‘94-’96)

Population Sample College (Cohorts ‘94-’96)

Population Sample College (Cohorts ‘94-’96)

Population Sample College (Cohorts ‘94-’96)

64.0% 1691 49.0%

12 12.9% 1

Native American 3 3.2% 1

0%

10.0%

10.0%

0%

100%

798

259

33

475

4080

6.3%

0.8%

11.6%

100%

12.0%

4.0%

0%

821

230

9

23.8%

6.7%

0.3%

75 59.1% 21 70.0% 1761

9 7.1% 1 3.3% 116

Asian/ Pac. Is. 20 15.7 3 10.0% 803

61.4%

4.0%

28.0%

White

Black

401

105

56.2%

14.7%

64.7%

School 2

Native American 0 0% 0

Black

13

Hispanic

17 10.2% 1

White

52.0% 9861

School 1

Asian/ Pac. Is. 78 10.9%

Hispanic

School 3 17 13.4% 5 16.7% 183

Native American 0 0% 0 0% 6

6.4%

0.2%

Hispanic

School 4 Hispanic 58 8.1%

Native American 9 1.3%

Unknown/Other 8 8.6% 0

Unknown/Other

Total 93 100% 10

Total

28 16.8% 3

167 100% 25

12.0%

100%

442

3453

12.8%

100%

Unknown/Other

Total

6 4.7% 0 0% 0

127 100% 30 100% 2869

0%

100%

Unknown/Other 63 8.8%

3

4

2

1

2

12.0%

16.0%

8.0%

4.0%

8.0%

Total 714 100% 25 100%

1365

1878

725

104

1310

15243

9.0%

12.3%

4.8%

0.7%

8.6%

100%

Five general conclusions can be drawn when looking at patterns across the schools. First, in all of the schools, the largest number of leavers are White;

25

College Attrition at American Research Universities moreover, the proportion of Whites who leave approximates their proportion of the larger cohorts. Second, excluding Native Americans, Blacks leave college in the smallest numbers (School 4 being an exception, where they exceed Hispanics); however, Blacks leave college at one and a half to two times their proportion of the larger cohorts (School 2 being an exception, where 4.2 percent of all leavers were Black, against the 7.5 percent in the larger cohorts). Third, the pattern of attrition among Hispanics is in general similar to that of Blacks; that is, the number of Hispanics who leave is relatively small, but their proportions are relatively large. Fourth, Asians leave in proportions smaller than that of their wider cohort make-up; however, as a proportion of all leavers, Asians most closely resemble Blacks and Hispanics, with anywhere between ten and fifteen percent of leavers composing each group. Fifth, the percentage of Native American leavers is very small, as are their relative numbers in the larger cohorts. The predominant patterns of Hispanics and Blacks leaving college in greatest proportion without a degree reflect enduring national trends (Massey et. al. 2003). In the leaver sample of interviewees, the proportions fluctuate from school to school and from group to group, which resulted exclusively from the availability of respondents to be interviewed. If one were to take a liberal measure and ask where any gross mis-representation in the leaver sample occurs, only one group in one school arises: no Asians from School 1 were available to be interviewed, despite them comprising 15.1 percent (fourteen in number) of the leaver population at that school. Looking at the numbers, the group at highest risk of leaving is Whites. Looking at the proportions, the groups at highest risk of leaving are Blacks and Hispanics. Looking at these disparities, one might argue that the problem lies in the absence of a critical mass of minorities which, if it did exist, would off-set their attrition — a “safety in numbers” line of reasoning. This line of reasoning is compelling, since when looking at Whites and Asians we see that as their numbers increase, the proportion of these students who leave either equals or is less than the proportions of their larger make-up.

26

The Social Context of Attrition But while this line of reasoning is compelling, is it credible? The available evidence suggests that it is not a sufficient condition for improved retention. If we look at schools that possess a mass of minorities, rates of attrition are among the worst to be found nationwide: Morehouse College’s five-year graduation rate is 62 percent; Howard University’s rate is 57 percent; Florida A&M University’s rate is 44 percent; Grambling State University’s rate is 31 percent; Cleveland State University’s rate is 28 percent (U.S. News and World Report 2003). Another variable, discussed at the outset, co-exists with these low rates: selectivity. The schools above are relatively unselective, admitting on the order of sixty to eighty percent of their applicants (U.S. New and World Report 2003). Thus, while increasing the proportions of minorities may be part of the story of retention, it is not the whole story. Other factors, such as selectivity and oncampus support structures, also likely come into play, and will be discussed later. Academic Profile An academic profile of college leavers can be limned using three measures of performance: Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores; high school grade point averages (g.p.a.’s); and college g.p.a.’s compiled while the students were enrolled. These are of course not the only measures of academic performance; they are, however, the only ones available for each of the schools (and, at that, in select cases where noted, high school g.p.a. data is not available from schools). Table 5 presents characteristics of academic performance by gender for each school. Table 5. Characteristics of Academic Performance, by Gender and School

SAT Mean Median Min. Max.

Total

Leaver Sample Male Female

School 1 Leaver Population Total Male Female

Total

1280 1280 1000 1600

1320 1320 1160 1600

1330 1215 1090 1400

1350 1380 880 1600

1360 1380 1060 1540

1350 1370 980 1580

1381 1390 820 1600

1400 1400 850 1600

1380 1390 850 1600

2.79 2.90 1.76 3.60

2.76 2.95 1.85 3.78

2.82 2.94 0.25 3.94

2.73 2.71 0.47 3.85

2.94 3.08 0.25 3.94

3.38 3.46 0.47 4.00

3.34 3.45 0.47 4.00

3.42 3.51 0.25 3.99

Total College (Cohorts ’94-‘96) Male Female

H.S. G.P.A. n/a Coll. G.P.A. Mean Median Min. Max.

2.77 2.95 1.76 3.78

27

College Attrition at American Research Universities

Total

Leaver Sample Male Female

School 2 Leaver Population Total Male Female

Total

1260 1295 800 1510

1380 1375 1210 1510

1200 1225 800 1340

1324 1340 910 1600

1340 1380 910 1600

1310 1320 980 1510

1300 1320 610 1600

1310 1320 610 1600

1300 1310 830 1600

H.S. G.P.A. Mean 3.62 Median 3.61 Min. 3.05 Max. 4.00

3.67 3.74 3.24 3.97

3.58 3.61 3.05 4.00

3.73 3.73 3.00 4.47

3.68 3.68 3.00 4.31

3.77 3.82 3.05 4.47

3.73 3.78 1.01 4.49

3.70 3.75 1.36 4.49

3.76 3.80 1.01 4.49

Coll. G.P.A. Mean Median Min. Max.

3.31 3.42 2.43 4.00

3.23 3.40 2.43 4.00

3.35 3.52 2.56 3.89

3.35 3.48 1.00 4.00

3.30 3.44 1.90 4.00

3.41 3.51 1.00 3.41

3.34 3.41 1.67 4.00

3.29 3.36 1.67 4.00

3.41 3.47 1.92 4.00

Total

Leaver Sample Male Female

School 3 Leaver Population Total Male Female

Total College (Cohorts ’94-‘96) Total Male Female

1244 1305 790 1480

1277 1310 950 1480

1214 1285 790 1470

1249 1290 790 1510

1263 1300 830 1500

1231 1285 790 1510

1309 1320 800 1600

H.S. G.P.A. Mean Median Min. Max.

3.89 3.95 3.06 4.41

3.86 3.98 3.16 4.18

3.91 3.93 3.06 4.14

3.83 3.87 2.33 5.31

3.79 3.85 2.33 4.85

3.87 3.88 2.75 5.31

Coll. G.P.A. Mean Median Min. Max.

3.00 3.24 1.00 3.91

3.14 3.36 1.80 3.91

2.88 2.85 1.00 3.82

2.99 3.13 1.00 3.91

2.93 3.11 1.13 3.91

3.07 3.16 1.00 3.90

Total

Leaver Sample Male Female

School 4 Leaver Population Total Male Female

Total College (Cohorts ’94-‘96) Total Male Female

1160 1200 770 1480

1180 1215 770 1480

1130 1190 840 1320

1140 1150 720 1470

1160 1170 740 1470

1120 1140 720 1470

1140 1140 530 1600

1160 1150 560 1600

1110 1150 530 1600

H.S. G.P.A. Mean 3.61 Median 3.70 Min. 2.90 Max. 4.00

3.60 3.50 2.90 4.00

3.70 3.70 3.30 4.00

3.49 3.60 2.00 4.00

3.45 3.50 2.00 4.00

3.53 3.60 2.20 4.00

3.38 3.54 1.60 4.00

3.33 3.60 1.60 4.00

3.41 3.58 1.80 4.00

Coll. G.P.A. Mean Median Min. Max.

2.47 2.71 0.69 3.83

2.40 2.50 1.36 3.44

2.47 2.50 0.13 4.00

2.32 2.31 0.13 4.00

2.64 2.82 0.31 3.98

2.86 2.95 0.14 4.00

2.77 2.95 0.13 4.12

2.95 3.08 0.14 4.02

SAT Mean Median Min. Max.

SAT Mean Median Min. Max.

SAT Mean Median Min. Max.

2.42 2.50 0.69 3.83

Total College (Cohorts ’94-‘96) Male Female

n/a

3.19 3.24 1.33 4.00

1330 1340 830 1600

1284 1290 800 1600

n/a

n/a

3.20 3.24 1.33 4.00

3.20 3.23 2.01 4.00

In looking at patterns in the data across schools, four general conclusions can be drawn. First, SAT scores for the leavers in each of the schools are generally strong and generally parallel to the scores of the larger entry cohorts. The distribution of scores among leavers in all of the schools is wide, and 28

The Social Context of Attrition perhaps a source of attrition. However, the distribution of scores among the larger cohorts is also noticeably wide. Second, high school grades among the leavers in all of the schools (where data is available) are notably strong and mirror the scores of the entry cohorts. Third, college grades of leavers are generally lower than that of the entry cohorts (School 2 an exception, where grades are parallel); the marginal difference in college grades at School 3 is small (looking at median scores, about one-tenth of a grade point) and at schools 1 and 4 it is higher (looking at median scores, about one-half of a grade point). In general, therefore, leavers did less well in college than persisters, but it is uncertain whether this performance was a cause or consequence of events that precipitated departure. Fourth, no significant differences in academic performance by gender are detectable in any of the schools. In looking at the performance data, it is evident that these schools lose a range of performers, which raises a key point: attrition in any one of these schools is not comprised primarily of weak students, thus shattering a longstanding myth. Many of the students who have left have done so coming to college with impressive high school records and after compiling strong college records. (While college grades were generally lower among leavers, the grades themselves were not, on the whole, weak, but, rather, average to strong.) Indeed perhaps the most trenchant conclusion to be drawn is the similarity struck between leavers and stayers: schools lose a range of performers, from the relatively weak to the indisputably strong, but retain a similar range of performers as well. Table 6 presents characteristics of academic performance by race/ethnicity for each school.

29

30

1600

Min.

Max.

2.77

2.95

1.76

3.78

Mean

Median

Min.

Max.

Coll. G.P.A.

H.S. G.P.A n/a

1280

1000

Median

1280

SAT

Mean

Total

3.78

1.76

3.04

2.80

1600

1140

1320

1325

White

2.95

1.85

2.40

2.40

1090

1090

---

1

1090

Black

---2

1320

---2

3.60

3.60 2.58

2.58

---

1

---

2.58

1

1160

1160

---1

1160

Nat. Am.

3.60

1320

1320

---1

Hispanic

Asian

Leaver Sample

3 .94

0.25

2.94

2.82

1600

880

1380

1350

Total

3.94

1.76

3.21

3.10

1600

1080

1400

1390

White

3.49

0.76

2.51

2.34

1430

1090

1250

1240

Black

3.86

1.4 3

3.10

3.10

1550

1180

1400

1400

Asian

Leaver Population

School 1

3.63

0.25

2.32

2.41

1430

980

1270

1240

Hispanic

2.64

0.47

2.60

1.90

1270

1160

1210

1210

Nat. Am.

Characteristics of Academic Performance, by Race/Ethnicity and School

Table 6

4.00

0.47

3.46

3.38

1600

820

1390

1381

Total

4.00

1.71

3.52

3.43

1600

940

1400

1400

White

3.89

0.76

3.04

2.96

1580

910

1240

1260

Black

4.00

1.43

3.57

3.48

1600

870

1430

1430

Asian

3.90

0.25

3.27

3.16

1600

890

1290

1290

Hispanic

Total College (Cohorts ’94-’96)

3.85

0.47

3.24

3.14

1590

1040

1270

1300

Nat. Am.

College Attrition at American Research Universities

800

1510

Min.

Max.

31

4.00

Min.

Max.

3.31

3.42

2.43

4.00

Mean

Median

Min.

Max.

Coll. G.P.A.

3.61

3.05

Median

3.62

Mean

H.S. G.P.A.

800

1295

Median

4.00

2.43

3.63

3.40

4.00

3.24

3.62

3.67

1460

1280

1260

1235

White

Mean

SAT

Total

2.79

3.50

2.64

3.10

---1

2.79

3.10

---2

1450

1140

1330

1310

Asian

2.79

3.05

3.05

---1

3.05

1320

1290

1305

1305

Black

Leaver Sample

3.13

3.13

---1

3.13

3.81

3.81

---1

3.81

1060

1060

---1

1060

Hispanic

Table 6

---2

---2

---2

Nat . Am.

4.00

1.00

3.48

3.35

4.47

3.00

3.73

3.73

1600

910

1340

1324

Total

4.00

1.00

3.50

3.35

4.45

3.00

3.74

3.73

1600

800

1340

1325

White

3.70

2.80

3.50

3.30

4.16

3.05

3.32

3.57

1490

1010

1270

1220

Black

4.00

2.57

3.70

3.60

4.47

3.35

3.97

3.90

1490

1140

1380

1360

Asian

Leaver Population

School 2

3.82

2.20

3.14

3.14

4.31

3.10

3.57

3.62

1420

1060

1220

1215

Hispanic

---2

---2

---2

Nat. Am.

Characteristics of Academic Performance, by Race/Ethnicity and School

4.00

1.67

3.41

3.34

4.49

1.01

3.78

3.73

1600

610

1320

1300

Total

4.00

1.67

3.48

3.40

4.49

1.05

3.78

3.73

1600

610

1330

1320

White

3.93

1.81

3.03

3.00

4.46

2.19

3.50

3.50

1450

830

1130

1135

Black

4.00

1.95

3.41

3.34

4.07

1.01

3.86

3.81

1590

940

1340

1325

Asian

4.00

1.89

3.16

3.14

4.47

2.70

3.67

3.70

1560

830

1190

1180

Hispanic

Total College (Cohorts ’94-’96)

3.71

2.64

3.58

3.32

4.11

2.84

3.74

3.60

1440

1190

1260

1300

Nat. Am.

The Social Context of Attrition

32

4.41

Min.

Max.

3.00

3.24

1.00

3.91

Mean

Median

Min.

Max.

Coll. G.P.A.

3.95

3.06

Median

3.89

Mean

H.S G.P.A.

950

790

1480

Min.

Max.

3.91

1.00

3.41

3.13

4.25

3.64

3.99

3.97

1480

1310

1305

Median

1301

White

1244

Total

Mean

SAT

2.85

3.82

1.80

2.70

2.85

---

2.77

1

3.79

2.85

4.41

3.16

3.47

4.41

---

3.47

1

1400

4.41

950

1040

1360

---1

950

1267

Asian

950

Black

Leaver Sample

3.31

2.19

2.71

2.66

3.89

3.10

3.71

3.55

1310

790

1070

1046

Hispanic

3.91

1.00

3.13

2.99

5.31

2.33

3.78

3.83

1510

790

1290

1249

Total

3.91

1.00

3.16

3.02

4.85

3.00

3.86

3.84

1480

950

1310

1286

White

3.31

1.81

2.87

2.85

4.41

2.75

3.13

3.26

1200

920

1000

1046

Black

Leaver Population

3.90

1.80

3.38

3.25

5.31

3.16

4.00

4.10

1500

1040

1345

1308

Asian

3.61

1.47

2.59

2.59

4.69

2.33

3.89

3.75

1510

790

1090

1108

Hispanic

Characteristics of Academic Performance, by Race/Ethnicity and School School 3

Table 6

4.00

1.33

3.24

3.19

n/a

1600

800

1320

1309

Total

4.00

1.33

3.29

3.24

n/a

1600

900

1340

1326

White

3.75

1.88

2.86

2.88

n/a

1540

800

1175

1158

Black

3.97

1.54

3.23

3.18

n/a

1600

960

1320

1307

Asian

Total College (Cohorts ’94-’96)

4.00

1.63

2.89

2.91

n/a

1540

800

1200

1197

Hispanic

College Attrition at American Research Universities

1280

770

1480

Median

Min.

Max.

33

3.83

Min.

Max.

3.83

1.88

2.81

2.81

2

No cases.

1Only one case.

2.50

0.69

Median

2.42

Mean

Coll. G.P.A.

3.30

2.90

4.00

Min.

Max.

4.00

3.80

3.61

3.70

Mean

3.69

1380

930

1220

1215

White

Median

H.S. G.P.A.

1160

Mean

SAT

Total

2.70

1.36

1.94

2.00

3.60

3.50

3.55

3.55

1005

840

1000

960

Black

3.16

1.35

1.49

2.00

3.90

3.30

3.60

3.58

1480

960

1325

1270

Asian

Leaver Sample

2.91

0.69

1.80

1.80

3.40

2.90

3.15

3.15

1000

770

885

885

Hispanic

Table 6

1.61

4.00

0.13

2.50

1.61

2.47

---1

4.00

1.61

3.70

2.00

3.60

3.70

3.49

---1

1470

3.70

1190

720

1150

1190

1140

---1

Total

1190

Nat. Am.

3.96

0.13

2.70

2.60

4.00

2.00

3.70

3.58

1470

810

1180

1180

White

3.61

0.37

1.86

1.92

4.00

2.50

3.25

3.27

1320

720

940

960

Black

3.82

0.32

2.80

2.61

4.00

2.40

3.60

3.60

1440

880

1215

1210

Asian

Leaver Population

School 4

3.65

0.20

2.00

2.00

4.00

2.30

3.20

3.20

1370

800

1040

1050

Hispanic

2.81

0.94

1.66

1.67

3.80

2.50

3.25

3.25

1130

850

1070

1030

Nat. Am.

Characteristics of Academic Performance, by Race/Ethnicity and School

4.00

0.14

2.95

2.86

4.00

1.60

3.54

3.38

1600

530

1140

1140

Total

4.00

0.13

3.22

3.15

4.00

1.60

3.70

3.64

1600

530

1205

1200

White

4.00

0.14

2.49

2.45

4.00

1.60

3.30

3.27

1580

540

970

1000

Black

4.00

0.32

3.15

3.05

4.00

2.30

3.68

3.61

1600

590

1220

1230

Asian

4.00

0.20

2.81

2.75

4.00

2.20

3.40

3.37

1560

640

1165

1100

Hispanic

Total College (Cohorts ’94-’96)

3.91

0.21

2.81

2.60

4.00

2.50

3.43

3.48

1540

690

1135

1105

Nat. Am.

The Social Context of Attrition

College Attrition at American Research Universities

To clarify patterns, in table 7 correlation coefficients of academic performance and race/ethnicity are presented for each school.

Table 7. Correlations between Academic Performance and Race/Ethnicity, by School

Asian Black Hispanic Native Am. White

Asian Black Hispanic Native Am.2 White

School 1 COLL GPA HS GPA1 .158 -.157 -.197 -.154

-.155

.242*

.299**

School 3 COLL GPA HS GPA .214 .181* -.295** -.060 -.062 -.247** .041

SAT .193 -.316** -.306**

.058

Asian Black Hispanic Native Am.2 White

SAT .165 -.361** -.356**

Asian Black Hispanic Native Am. White

.289**

School 2 COLL GPA HS GPA .156 .162* -.112 -.022 -.120 -.150 .010

-.026

School 4 COLL GPA HS GPA .056 .044 -.234** -.256** -.237** -.190**

SAT .095 -.159* -.253** -.049 SAT .165 -.478** -.189**

-.057

-.100

-.062

.270**

.175**

.335**

1Data not Available 2 No Native Americans in leaver population **Correlation significant at the .01 level (2-tailed) * Correlation significant at the .05 level (2-tailed)

Statistically significant differences in performance by group emerge, and the differences are plain: regardless of the school, Blacks and Hispanics have lower high school grades and test scores, and also are prone to have lower college grades. The negative direction of the relationship between the performance measures and race holds for Native Americans, but not as often in statistically significant ways. Whites and Asians have high grades, both in high school and in college, and high test scores, often in statistically significant ways across schools. While these patterns hold generally for each of the schools, School 4 exhibits the extremes: Blacks and Hispanics register moderate, negative correlations (.01 level) on all three performance measures, while Whites register moderate, positive correlations (.01 level) on all of the measures. These patterns pertain to earlier discussion on the proportions of leavers by race/ethnicity. Blacks and Hispanics leave in disproportionate numbers, but they also enroll with track records that are disproportionately below the norm. This finding supports Litten’s major conclusion discussed at the outset: admissions selectivity is highly predictive of retention and graduation. These

34

The Social Context of Attrition data demonstrate that if schools admit students whose academic performance is significantly below the norm, they assume significantly greater risk of attrition. Schools can reduce those risks by upholding selectivity standards across groups. If schools wish to take those risks, and also fulfill their pledge to educate and graduate the academically low-performing students they admit, then presumably other kinds of support structures need to be put in place — or be more effectively administered — for such students. Financial Profile Table 8 provides a profile of leavers and stayers by the type of financial aid they received (no such data was available from School 1; data for School 4 is confounded by in-state and out-of-state cost differentials). Table 8. Distribution of Financial Aid, by Type and School1

(N=25) Mean ($) Median ($) Min ($) Max ($)

Grants 12,250 14,368 268 22,767

School 2 Leaver Sample Loans 3,382 3,825 1,850 6,625

(N=167) Mean ($) Median ($) Min ($) Max ($)

Grants 12,536 12,656 1,260 24,734

Leaver Population Loans 3,316 3,138 550 7,150

Work 1,747 1,975 585 1,975

Parents Contribution 12,042 10,000 265 29,466

(N=1401) Mean ($) Median ($) Min ($) Max ($)

Grants 13,884 14,338 285 32,466

Total College (’96 Cohort) Loans 3,469 3,605 105 7,325

Work 2,571 2,625 105 3,977

Parents Contribution 11,123 9,347 50 32,252

(N=30) Mean ($) Median ($) Min ($) Max ($)

Grants 14,867 16,368 7,340 20,610

School 3 Leaver Sample Loans 1,897 1,900 350 3,500

Work 1,903 2,000 1,150 2,220

Parents Contribution 12,866 7,503 1,000 31,035

(N=127) Mean ($) Median ($) Min ($) Max ($)

Grants 12,844 14,510 1,000 20,000

Leaver Population Loans 1,920 1,769 350 3,500

Work 1,897 2,100 700 3,250

Parents Contribution 11,926 9,475 515 32,615

(N=980) Mean ($) Median ($) Min ($) Max ($)

Grants 12,727 12,775 354 22,415

Total College (’96 Cohort) Loans 2,680 3,055 130 7,300

Work 2,016 2,200 26 4,000

Parents Contribution2

35

Work 1,894 1,975 1,650 1,975

Parents Contribution 12,098 10,320 1,591 25,345

College Attrition at American Research Universities

(N=25) Mean ($) Median ($) Min ($) Max ($)

Grants 5,006 5,344 904 8,741

School 4 Leaver Sample Loans 2,559 2,521 1,277 4,521

(N=127) Mean ($) Median ($) Min ($) Max ($)

Grants 5,585 4,572 148 17,500

(N=980) Grants Mean ($) 3,647 Median ($) 2,420 Min ($) 95 Max ($) 21,830 1Data for school 1 not available 2 Data not available

Work2

Parents Contribution 12,827 10,990 789 28,496

Leaver Population Loans 2,928 2,521 482 7,300

Work 1,014 1,013 57 2,343

Parents Contribution 9,304 6,552 18 32,675

Total College (’96 Cohort) Loans 2,429 1,900 96 7,800

Work 1,159 1,203 7 2,720

Parents Contribution2 7,048 3,688 4 32,675

In looking at the means and medians for the leaver population and the entry cohorts, one major conclusion can be drawn: the financial aid arrangements of leavers approximate, are equivalent to, or exceed the arrangements of students in the entry cohorts, and this holds for each school. A major component of these arrangements involves grants; in all of the schools, leavers left college holding significant, non-repayable award funds in hand, but elected to leave anyway. However, it is also clear that the parents’ contribution component in each of the schools is high, for leavers as for persisters. What is unclear is whether in specific cases the mix of ingredients — in grants, loans, work, and parental support — sufficiently matched the individual need, an issue addressed shortly. What was true for academic performance, holds for money. Just as attrition is not composed mainly of low academic performers (stars leave just as readily), nor is it composed mainly of the financially disenfranchised (the deep-pocketed also walk, and just as easily). Schools lose students whose finances, in aggregate, resemble students who stay. Summary Using quantitative data on students who left the schools in this study, and comparing it with equivalent data on larger groups of students who left and with equivalent data on larger groups of students who stayed, we have generated several important findings. We have found that men and women college students at these schools are as apt to leave as one another. We have also found that White students leave in greatest number, while Black and Hispanic

36

The Social Context of Attrition students leave in greatest proportion. What is more, academic low performers are as apt to leave (or stay) in school as are academic high performers. The same is true about finances: we found that those with money troubles are as apt to leave (or stay) in school are as those without money troubles. This chapter began by stressing the possibility that these key demographic characteristics of students — gender, race/ethnicity, academic performance, and finances — could exert independent effects on attrition. The analysis has remained open to that possibility, but has found contrary evidence. These demographic characteristics make attrition look random. None of the characteristics singularly, or when combined with others, adequately accounts for attrition at any one of the schools. Put another way, if we were to conclude the analysis at this juncture, we would have little to go on in making headway to better account theoretically for attrition in the research university context. This void also would entail a lack of headway in policy and possible intervention designed to remedy attrition, if not fully then partly. Consequently, we must look further. This look takes us beyond the demographic context to the process of attrition itself, attending not only to its quantitative profile but also to its qualitative character. Here, in the finergrained details, we may uncover more powerful explanations of attrition and thus more informed reactions and remedies.

37

CHAPTER III

THE PROCESS OF ATTRITION A substantial portion of research on college attrition characteristically views the phenomenon in static terms (e.g., Lenning, Beal, and Sauer 1980; Mattette and Cabrera 1991). Students enroll in college, and after a period of time, some leave without a degree. This way of viewing attrition may be partly explained by research that has focused on discrete, atemporal reasons why students leave (e.g., Witt and Handal 1984), or on the statistical testing of relationships between variables that might predict persistence (e.g., Astin 1971; Murtaugh, Burns, and Schuster 1999). Attrition is thus known to happen, to be certain, but the experiential paths leading up to that outcome have been less frequently visited and explored in detail for the content and meaning they hold for students. Most typically attrition is not an event isolated in the time or space of which college students are interactive parts. Rather, it may be viewed, as it occurs empirically, as part of a process that results in college departure itself (and probably other personal, social, and economic outcomes) (cf. Tinto 1988). This chapter aims to see attrition in more dynamic than static terms. In taking this longer, “career-like” view (cf. Faulkner 1974; Stebbins 1970), we are able to see antecedents of attrition, identifying several of the conditions — situated as they may be in organizational contexts — that give rise to it, at varying rates.

41

College Attrition at American Research Universities Departure Timing Given the magnitude of the decision to leave college, and the gravity of the consequences that result from the decision, it would stand to reason that students give themselves and their schools the benefit of time to reach a conclusion so severe. All data suggest that this is not the case. As table 9 documents, a large fraction of college attrition occurs in the first year of school. Table 9. Leavers’ Length of Stay by School, in Terms1 Terms <1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

School 1 Frequency 19 26 9 26 5 8 0 0 0 0 0

Percent 20.4 28.0 9.7 28.0 5.4 8.6 0 0 0 0 0

Terms <1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

School 3 Terms Frequency Percent Terms 23 18.1 <1 <1 2 20 15.7 2 3 56 44.1 3 4 7 5.5 4 5 2 1.6 5 6 16 12.6 6 7 2 1.6 7 8 1 0.6 8 9 0 0 9 10 0 0 10 11 0 0 11 1Terms for schools 1,2, and 4 are semesters; for school 3, quarters.

School 2 Frequency 10 33 30 27 24 8 12 2 6 0 1

Percent 6.5 21.6 19.6 17.6 15.7 5.2 7.8 1.3 3.9 0 0.7

School 4 Frequency 138 274 109 146 32 44 0 0 0 0 0

Percent 18.6 36.9 14.7 19.7 4.3 5.9 0 0 0 0 0

More alarming, a significant fraction of first-year attrition occurs during or even before the first term of school is completed. Seventy-eight percent of School 3 leavers account for the school’s first-year attrition; nearly twenty percent left immediately after, or not even before the conclusion of, the first term. The pattern is essentially identical at School 4. School 2 loses a higher percentage of its students in the second than in the first year of college. A much larger fraction of attrition (over half) at School 1 occurs after the first year. While specific dates of departure call into question any sense of precaution exercised in the decision to leave college, the time it takes students to decide to leave belies it completely. As Table 10 reports, a substantial portion of leavers decide to leave in their first term of college; an equally substantial portion of those who wait, wait no longer than their second term of college.

42

The Process of Attrition Table 10. Length of Time to Decide to Leave by School, in Terms1 Terms <1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

School 1 Frequency 7 0 0 3 0 0 0 0

Percent 70.0 0 0 30.0 0 0 0 0

Terms <1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

School 3 Terms Frequency Percent Terms 12 40.0 <1 <1 2 8 26.7 2 3 3 10.0 3 4 4 13.3 4 5 1 3.3 5 6 0 0 6 7 1 3.3 7 8 1 3.3 8 1 Terms for schools 1,2, and 4 are semesters; for school 3, quarters.

School 2 Frequency 3 11 5 3 0 1 1 0

Percent 12.5 45.8 20.8 12.5 0 4.2 4.2 0

School 4 Frequency 4 15 2 3 1 0 0 0

Percent 16.0 60.0 8.0 12.0 4.0 0 0 0

Reflecting national trends (Tinto 1993 [1987]), the data for each of these schools show that a student’s early college experiences are crucial for retention. Experiences (or lack of experiences) in the first term, indeed in the first weeks, of college exact a heavy toll on retention. As later discussion will make even more apparent, it is in these first weeks and throughout the first year — and even before the first year begins — where substantial strides can be made in offsetting attrition.

Departure Reasons Why do people leave college? Contrary to what might be popular belief, the data suggest that it would be only a slight exaggeration to say that there are nearly as many reasons for leaving as there are people who leave. What is more, this pattern holds across the schools in this study. This finding is especially notable because most if not all institutions, including those examined here, create their identities partly on the basis of characteristics said to be unique, including unique characteristics of failure. Thus School 1 students leave for reasons thought to be unique to School 1, School 2 students leave for reasons thought to be unique to School 2, and so on. Leavers were asked to discuss all of the reasons that motivated their withdrawals. Codes were established for 22 reasons across the schools, and the reasons have been ranked in the order in which they held meaning for students. Thus, “top” reasons for leaving are those identified by students as the most salient in their decisions to leave; other reasons assumed descending ranks (2-5)

43

College Attrition at American Research Universities according to the importance identified by the students. Table 11 presents the results. Table 11. Reasons for Leaving, by School Reason lack of extracurricular activities school location lacked a specific academic program the school’s social life academic program not career oriented family/relationship considerations financial reasons winter weather looking for a more balanced life academic competition general education curriculum desire school closer to home quality of teaching/classes academic performance/load/ pressure religious intolerance sports opportunities peer perceptions/didn’t fit in location of dorm medical-psychological medical-non-psychological job opportunities school’s size Total Reasons Offered Reason lack of extracurricular activities school location lacked a specific academic program the school’s social life academic program not career oriented family/relationship considerations financial reasons winter weather looking for a more balanced life academic competition general education curriculum desire school closer to home quality of teaching/classes academic performance/load/ pressure religious intolerance sports opportunities peer perceptions/didn’t fit in location of dorm medical-psychological medical-non-psychological job opportunities school’s size Total Reasons Offered

Offered First 0 1

School 1 Offered Second 0 1

Offered Third 0 0

Offered Fourth 0 1

Offered Fifth 0 0

Total Mentions 0 3 2

1

0

1

0

0

0

2

1

0

0

3

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

0

0

1

1 0 1 0 0 0 1

0 0 0 0 0 1 0

1 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 0 0 0 0 0 0

4 0 1 0 0 1 1

2

2

0

0

0

4

0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0

0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 4 0 3 0 0 0

7

7

2

1

27

Offered Third 0 2

Offered Fourth 0 2

Offered Fifth 0 1

Total Mentions 0 5

10 Offered First 0 0

School 2 Offered Second 0 0

3

0

0

0

0

3

0

4

4

0

0

8

1

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

4 0 1 0 3 1 4

4 0 1 0 0 1 0

0 0 0 0 0 2 1

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 0 0 0 0 0 0

9 0 2 0 3 4 5

2

1

0

1

0

4

0 0 2 0 0 2 1 0

0 0 5 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 8 0 0 2 1 0

24

16

9

4

2

55

44

The Process of Attrition

Reason lack of extracurricular activities school location lacked a specific academic program the school’s social life academic program not career oriented family/relationship considerations financial reasons winter weather looking for a more balanced life academic competition general education curriculum desire school closer to home quality of teaching/classes academic performance/load/ pressure religious intolerance sports opportunities peer perceptions/didn’t fit in location of dorm medical-psychological1 medical-non-psychological job opportunities school’s size Total Reasons Offered 1

Offered First 0 1

School 3 Offered Second 0 1

Offered Third 1 4

Offered Fourth 0 0

Offered Fifth 0 0

Total Mentions 1 6

4

2

0

1

0

7

1

1

3

1

1

9

0

1

0

0

0

1

3

1

1

0

0

5

8 0 2 0 1 1 0

1 1 1 1 1 3 2

1 2 1 0 4 0 4

0 0 3 0 2 0 2

1 0 0 0 2 0 0

11 3 7 1 10 4 8

2

4

1

2

0

9

1 1 5 0 0 0 0 0

2 1 2 1 0 0 0 0

0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0

0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

3 2 10 2 0 0 0 0

30

28

22

14

5

99

Offered Third 0 0

Offered Fourth 0 0

Offered Fifth 0 0

Total Mentions 0 0 4

Removed from interview pool Reason

lack of extracurricular activities school location lacked a specific academic program the school’s social life academic program not career oriented family/relationship considerations financial reasons winter weather looking for a more balanced life academic competition general education curriculum desire school closer to home quality of teaching/classes academic performance/load/ pressure religious intolerance sports opportunities peer perceptions/didn’t fit in location of dorm medical-psychological medical-non-psychological job opportunities school’s size Total Reasons Offered

Offered First 0 0

School 4 Offered Second 0 0

4

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

3

1

0

0

0

4

4 2 1 0 0 0 1

4 0 0 1 0 3 0

1 0 0 0 0 1 2

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

9 2 1 1 0 4 3

6

4

1

0

0

11

0 1 1 0 0 0 0 2

0 1 1 0 1 0 1 1

0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 2 7 0 1 0 1 3

25

18

7

0

0

50

As the table shows, the reasons are considerably dispersed; very little clustering of reasons exists. Moreover, most students elect to leave for more than one reason; often the reasons in a set bear little relation to each other (e.g., leaving because of peer perceptions and winter weather). 45

College Attrition at American Research Universities The same patterns prevail in Table 12, which presents reasons why students left the schools by gender and race/ethnicity. Table 12. Reasons for Leaving, by Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and School School 1 Reason lack of extracurricular activities school’s location lacked a specific academic program the school’s social life academic program not career oriented family/relationship considerations financial reasons winter weather looking for a more balanced life academic competition general education curriculum desire school closer to home quality of teaching/classes academic performance/load/ pressure religious intolerance sports opportunities peer perceptions/didn’t fit in location of dorm medical-psychological medical-non-psychological school’s size job opportunity Total Reasons Offered Reason lack of extracurricular activities school’s location lacked a specific academic program the school’s social life academic program not career oriented family/relationship considerations financial reasons winter weather looking for a more balanced life academic competition general education curriculum desire school closer to home quality of teaching/classes academic performance/load/ pressure religious intolerance sports opportunities peer perceptions/didn’t fit in location of dorm medical-psychological medical-non-psychological school’s size job opportunity Total Reasons Offered

White

Black

Asian

0 1

0 1

0 0

Hispa nic

0 0

Native Am.

Menti ons

0 0

0 2

Male

0 0

Female

Menti ons

2

0 2

0 2

1

0

0

0

1

2

1

1

2

1

0

0

0

3

1

2

3

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

1

1

0

1

2 0 1 0 0 0 1

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 1 0

2 0 1 0 0 1 1

1 0 0 0 0 1 0

1 0 1 0 0 0 1

2 0 1 0 0 1 1

2

1

0

1

0

4

3

1

4

0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0

0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 4 0 3 0 0 0

0 0 1 0 2 0 0 0

0 0 3 0 1 0 0 0

0 0 4 0 3 0 0 0

12

6

0 School 2

11

13

24

Male

Female

Menti ons

White

Black

Asian

0 1

0 0

0 0

3

3

24

Hispa nic

Native Am.

Menti ons

0 0

0 1

0 2

0 1

0 1

0 2

3

0

0

0

0

3

1

2

3

6

0

0

0

2

8

3

5

8

0

0

1

0

0

1

1

0

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

7 0 1 0 1 2 3

0 0 0 0 1 0 0

1 0 1 0 0 1 0

0 0 0 0 0 1 1

0 0 0 0 1 0 1

8 0 2 0 3 4 5

3 0 1 0 1 1 0

5 0 1 0 2 3 5

8 0 2 0 3 4 5

0

1

1

1

0

3

1

2

3

0 0 6 0 0 2 0 1

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 7 0 0 2 0 1

0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 4 0 0 2 0 1

0 0 7 0 0 2 0 1

33

2

5

3

6

49

16

33

49

46

The Process of Attrition School 3 Reason lack of extracurricular activities school’s location lacked a specific academic program the school’s social life academic program not career oriented family/relationship considerations financial reasons winter weather looking for a more balanced life academic competition general education curriculum desire school closer to home quality of teaching/classes academic performance/load/ pressure religious intolerance sports opportunities peer perceptions/didn’t fit in location of dorm medical-psychological1 medical-non-psychological school’s size job opportunity Total Reasons Offered 1

White

Black

Asian

1 6

0 0

0 0

Hispa nic

0 0

Native Am.

Menti ons

Male

1 6

1 3

0 0

Female

Menti ons

0 3

1 6

4

0

1

1

0

6

4

2

6

6

0

1

0

0

7

1

0

1

0

0

0

1

0

1

2

0

1

2

0

1

2

0

5

2

3

1

4 1 4 1 5 3 4

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 1 0 0 1 0 0

3 1 0 0 0 1 2

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

9 3 4 1 6 4 6

3 2 1 0 1 3 1

6 1 3 1 5 1 5

2 3 4 1 6 4 6

6

0

1

0

0

7

2

5

7

2 2 5 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0

0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

3 2 8 1 0 0 0 0

3 2 2 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 6 1 0 0 0 0

3 2 8 1 0 0 0 0

56

2

8

13

0

80

36

44

80

White

Black

Asian

Native Am.

Other/ Unkn own

Menti ons

Male

Female

Removed from interview pool School 4 Reason

Hispa nic

lack of extracurricular activities school’s location lacked a specific academic program the school’s social life academic program not career oriented family/relationship considerations financial reasons winter weather looking for a more balanced life academic competition general education curriculum desire school closer to home quality of teaching/classes academic performance/load/ pressure religious intolerance sports opportunities peer perceptions/didn’t fit in location of dorm medical-psychological medical-non-psychological school’s size job opportunity

6

2

1

0

0 1 1 0 0 0 2 0

0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

Total Reasons Offered

28

5

5

4

3

Menti ons

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0 4

2

1

1

0

0

0

4

1

3

1

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

1

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

2

0

1

1

0

0

4

3

1

4

5 1 0 1 0 3 3

1 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 1 0 0 0 0

2 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 1 0 0 0 1 0

9 2 1 1 0 4 3

5 1 1 0 0 2 2

4 1 0 1 0 2 1

9 2 1 1 0 4 3

1

1

11

4

7

11

0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0

0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

0 2 3 0 1 0 3 1

0 2 1 0 0 0 2 1

0 0 2 0 1 0 1 0

0 2 3 0 1 0 3 1

5

50

25

25

50

No systematic differences for leaving exist by gender. The dispersion of reasons by race/ethnicity is notable since earlier we found that certain groups do significantly more poorly academically than others, yet poor academic

47

College Attrition at American Research Universities performance is not offered as a reason for leaving in greater proportion than other reasons for any of the racial/ethnic groups. From a policy standpoint, tables 11 and 12 make clear that “correcting reasons” will not significantly correct attrition. Policies that target reasons address only a small fraction of attrition. The most effective attrition remedies lie, therefore, not with reasons, but with another aspect of the leaving process, the aspect to which the discussion now turns. The Character of the Departure Process The quantitative profile of students presented up to this point makes attrition look random. Students leave college for a wide variety of reasons; the reasons do not vary systematically by gender, by race/ethnicity, or by school. Students who do relatively poorly in high school and in college leave, but so do students who do relatively well. Students with no financial aid leave college; so do students with all the aid they might not even need. What about attrition brings it into more coherence? The answer turns out to lie not in the quantitative sketch of attrition but in the qualitative details that fill in the picture. The interviews with leavers were highly revelatory in this crucial respect — placing an otherwise ambiguous and seemingly arbitrary process in perspective. The phenomenon at work consists in the credibility of students' reasons for leaving college. In short, while the reasons students leave school are diverse, they are also often perverse. The vast majority of departure reasons are said to be “perverse” because, for a large fraction of students, leaving is a manifestation of impetuous decision-making, as evidence presented will soon indicate. What is more, patterns in the interviews begin to reveal significant school differences. The pattern of leaving impetuously pertains primarily to schools 3 and 4. While still apparent, it decreases in magnitude at School 2 and decreases further still at School 1 (recall that School 2 students were more apt to leave in or after the second, rather than the first, year; and slightly more than half of all School 1 attrition occurs after the first year). School 2 students are more reflective about the decision to leave. School 1 students are more reflective still. On the whole, this suggests that something about these schools (and their students) keeps people in, and in times of doubt about staying, makes them think harder about leaving. Because School 1 is so distinctive among the set, I shall reserve discussion of that school for the next chapter. A look at leavers —

48

The Process of Attrition from schools 2 to 4 — begins to illustrate the character of the departure process. Consider a School 4 student, who left immediately after orientation: I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go [to School 4], but after orientation I decided I didn’t because — I remember the first couple days I was there we took placement tests, and I took the whole placement test except for the chemistry exam, and that’s because I didn’t have a strong background in chemistry, and also I wasn’t going into a chemistry-related field. So, I didn’t think it was important. And then when you met with the advisors afterwards to let them tell you what class they’re placing you in and whatnot he was very rude to me about it. He told me that I should have taken the chemistry placement exam, and I told him I really didn’t feel it was important because I wasn’t going to be in any chemistry-related field, and I didn’t have a strong background in it, and he made me feel that — like I couldn’t compete. He told me that I — I came from a smaller high school, and he said that — how could I compete with like Ivy League high schools or people that were a lot more intelligent? If I couldn’t take the chemistry exam, then how do you think I could compete with them? And that’s when I decided that I didn’t want to go there, because I didn’t think I should pay for an education where someone didn’t think I was worth it going there. Q: Did you feel you should give yourself more time to figure out whether this might have been the right place or not? A: I didn’t feel that it was a good choice for me. Q: Can you elaborate on why you didn’t feel it would be a good choice? A: I think that maybe I was coming from a smaller high school and going to a bigger university, and I think that that shook my confidence a little bit when an advisor told me that, and so I didn’t think that I would be — I didn’t know if I’d get along there well. So I decided not to.

In this case, a negative introductory experience with an advisor did not help in the student’s transition to college and seems to propel a hasty decision to leave as the student confronts the anxiety experienced in settling into a different environment. Over time, and with some support, such anxieties likely would have subsided, as they presumably do with the large lot of students who similarly find themselves having to adjust to the world of the new (and in this instance large) university. Similarly, consider a School 3 student, who left in the middle of her first year: My progress was not very good. I ended up withdrawing from most of my classes. Q: Can you give me a sense of why you should withdraw?

49

College Attrition at American Research Universities A: I got very behind in work, and I couldn't make it up. That seemed the better thing to do. Q: What propelled you to withdraw from college altogether? A: I felt like I was wasting money since I was not making progress, but I was still paying full tuition. Q: Did you consider alternatives? A: Not really. Q: When you were applying to college, what expectations did you bring? A: When I applied, I expected a very vigorous academic environment. That's what I wanted, but when I got around to actually coming, I wasn't up to it. I didn't feel up to it. Q: Why? A: I was very uncertain what direction to go, and I didn't feel very motivated. Q: Were the courses too difficult? A: I don't really feel like the courses were too difficult. I think that I didn't come at them with the right attitude. I had some kind of block. I didn't have a very practical attitude toward anything. I think they were reasonable, but I didn't attend classes enough and I didn't do much work. Not nearly enough.

Like most if not all individuals, this student was admitted by School 3 on the basis of her ability to do well academically. Part of the adjustment to college involves new, or at least revised, time management habits and study skills. Indeed in many respects this account can be seen to be more normal than peculiar, par for the course of becoming a member of a new community with norms different than those previously known by the fledgling college student. Advising, coaching, and support for this student may well have prevented her departure, or at least her complete withdrawal, from college. This observation raises a further point. The preponderance of interview data suggest that students who withdraw from college should not completely withdraw but, rather, take a leave of absence, if the need for a leave is itself demonstrable (leaves of absence can of course be as impetuous as withdrawals). Students who withdraw for academic, health, family illness and relationship problems most readily exemplify cases in which a leave may be more appropriate than a withdrawal (the student above, if needing to leave at all, is a case in point). The following School 3 student demonstrates the point further: “My little sister was suicidal, so I wanted to be home to help out because we had to watch over her and stuff like that.” Q: What precipitated you withdrawing from college altogether?

50

The Process of Attrition A: To be closer to home. My stepmom is having a baby in a week and just to be able to be around and see my new little brother and stuff like that and help with my sister. Q: Would it have been completely impossible for you to have come back to [School 3] under the circumstances as you see them? A: Probably not completely impossible, but it wouldn't have been good. You know what I mean, I'm sure. It would have just been hard to be away from home when those problems and stuff were happening.

While a leave from school may have satisfied the felt need to return home, it remains unclear whether a complete withdrawal was justified. The student did not seek advice, nor was any advice offered at the time of departure, about the pros and cons of leaving temporarily versus leaving permanently. Turning to School 2 students, where decisions to leave are more often made by students in the second year, we begin to see the character of the departure process change: the process becomes more deliberate, the reasons more thought out. Q: Why did you feel you should leave the university? A: Well, at the time, I wasn't doing as well as I wanted to. And I just wanted to do something different for a while. Right now I'm in the military. I signed up for the military. It's a four-year thing. So, I told — I pretty much asked the dean. I was like, well, you know, “this is not working out. I kind of want to do something. If it's okay, I can take academic leave. But I have to take it for a long time. Because they [the military] don't do anything less than four years.” She was, like, yeah. So, I signed up for the military. I'm still finishing up my military term. I plan to go back after I finish. And I've got like about a year left. Q: Can you tell me a little more about why you decided to leave? A: Well, I mean, I wasn't doing well and I didn't want to continue, you know, down that path. I mean, I felt like I had to leave and come back and then start — kind of like make a brand new beginning. That way I could probably, you know, get the proper mind set, you know, to finish all the courses I had. Because all the core courses, they kind of, they're very time consuming...I just didn't, you know, there were times I just didn't feel like doing most of that stuff. That's how I got into [academic] trouble. So, I felt like I had to do something else for a while. You know, have a change of pace and when I come back, like I said, I'll settle down a little bit more and then tackle those courses again.

Another School 2 student, who had transferred from another school, illustrates the pattern further:

51

College Attrition at American Research Universities

Q: Why did you feel you should leave? A: I got into this accelerated medical school program where I would graduate a year early. And I just figured that that was better, it was a better deal than staying at [School 2] for the extra two years. Q: I see. Would it have been feasible for you to pursue your medical school interest while staying at [School 2]? A: Well, yeah, but then I would have had to do the traditional four years of undergrad. So basically what I did was I did three years of undergrad and then I started medical school. [I’m] at the University of Florida, and they accept 10 people, and I just thought I’d apply. It sounded interesting. Basically, [School 2] is really expensive and it was pretty tough for my family to pay for it, so I figured why not apply and see if I get in. And then I got interviewed, so I came down and looked at the place. I liked it. And then, actually, I didn’t originally get in, I got put on the wait list. So I’m like, oh, that’s fine, I’m not going to do it, I’ll go back to [School 2]. And then they called me the week before I was supposed to go back to [School 2]. And they said I got in and we realize it’s late, but do you want to do it and I just said, okay, well, why not give it a shot, and so here I am. My friend’s dad [on the Florida medical faculty] has been my mentor, basically, my whole life. He’s the one that got me interested in science. He was a professor at Yale for a while and then came here. And, basically, I just really respected his opinion, so I thought that I should just at least look into it because I valued his opinion and I respected what he says. And he said it’s a great program, I know people who have done it, and that’s basically why I even looked at it. I mean he brought it to me. I didn’t actively look for a way to get out of going back to [School 2] or anything like that. Q: Were there any other factors in deciding to leave other than this opportunity? A: Like I said, financially it was a lot of money. And I mean it would have been doable, I mean I could have stayed and my parents would have paid for it, but then I would have had to take loans, and I was going to take loans for medical school anyway and I just didn’t really want to have additional loans, too, on top.

As explained, there is a ring of haste in the School 2 accounts, but the ring is decidedly lower-pitched than in the School 3 and 4 accounts. The student above, like the student before him, illustrates the thought involved in the decision to leave, and while steps could have been taken to prevent their departures, the students left for reasons possessing greater credibility than those described, on the whole, by leavers of schools 3 and 4. Moreover, the School 2 students above, like many of their peers, are on productive paths (with one of the students likely to return to the school, and the other partly sorry that he left).

52

The Process of Attrition The account above, with its references to college costs and finances, leads us to an additional set of issues: money. Financial hardship, real or perceived, is one of the leading reasons, if it is not the leading reason, for departure at these schools (see Table 11) and at schools nationwide (Chaney and Farris 1991). Moreover, money is perhaps the most unambiguous of all reasons for departure, easily identifiable and understood if not as easy to correct. Critics will assert that money is a convenient scapegoat for students who have been motivated to leave for other, more stigmatizing reasons, such as poor academic performance. In general, this line of thought is plausible. In the interviews, however, this line of thought holds less water. Scapegoating is inconsistent with the way in which interviews with leavers were defined, namely as an occasion in which to speak candidly and anonymously about the departure experience, where incentives to lie or mislead were minimized, particularly in light of persistent probing that compelled respondents to provide a rationale for what they divulged. More plainly, it would be foolhardy to assume that college costs are irrelevant to attrition and retention. While many students often leave college just as impetuously over money matters as over other issues, the data suggest that the problem involves not just students, their families, and their ability to pay the bills. Q: Why did you feel you should leave [School 2]? A: Well, actually because my financial package from my first year declined in my second year. And so, I was obligated to pay a substantially more amount of money. I played tennis for [School 2]. So, I decided to explore my options as far gaining an athletic scholarship. And I wasn't sure if it would work out, but I was offered a full scholarship from another university. And as much as I actually really did like [School 2] a lot, it was a tough decision, I decided to transfer. Q: Were there other factors involved in deciding to leave? A: Strictly financial. Q: Can you tell me how you came to decide to leave? A: Like I said, this coach contacted me and basically said, we'll give you a full scholarship. Included in that is, you know, books and all these other things. So, I had to weigh the two options and I just decided to transfer based on the fact that if I hadn't left [School 2], I probably would have owed over $50,000. *** Q: Why did you feel you should leave [School 2]? A: Because we had no more money. Q: Can you tell me a little more about what the circumstances were?

53

College Attrition at American Research Universities A: Our family was going into debt and we just didn't have enough money to pay the loan that we had, and we didn't qualify for more aid. Q: Were there other factors in deciding to leave or was this just it? A: No, that was the only one. Q: Did you talk with anyone at [School 2] about what the circumstances were? A: Yes, I did. I went to the financial aid office and talked to them about what the situation is, they were looking at everything for me, but it just didn't seem like they could help me very much. Q: What was the outcome of your contact with them? A: I told them my situation. What happened was that my father started a business the same year that I started at [School 2] and it just didn't go very well. And so he had no income for that year, two years, while I was in school, and that just prevented them from being able to pay the loans off and when they were looking at it and said that they couldn't do anything at the moment, and I had to make a decision right then whether to leave and try and transfer to another school. Q: Did they take your father's circumstances into account? A: I told them what they were, but they said, well, we have to do some more, we have to get some more stuff in from him and all this stuff and at that time, me and my family just decided it would be better that I come back home and go to a school in state so I could be closer to the family as well so we didn't pursue it any further than that meeting. I didn't, you know, diligently pursue them or anything like that. *** Q: Why did you feel you should leave [School 3]? A: When I first graduated from high school and they gave me my award letter, I didn't really consider all the implications of it. I didn't really think about it, and some of the features that were included in it, such as how much money I'd have to take out to borrow to finance my attending the university. I didn't really consider that until, actually, I was in the university. That was, actually, the biggest reason, because I realized that after I got out, I'd have a substantial debt, and that was something that worried me, being able to repay it...Other students didn't seem to be similar to me in economic situations. When I went there, nobody seemed to have any money problems at all. They just seemed to come from wealthy families who were supporting them throughout their entire college experience. From the very beginning, when I first arrived, I was having trouble just paying for things, because my parents were supposed to pay a certain amount of my college expenses, but how they calculated that, I'll never know. So I had to come up with their share of the bill through my own work. Before I even went [School 3], I was saving up money. Then, when I got there, I started working there, too. So I had to pay their share as well as mine, which made it pretty difficult. And, as I said before, no one else seemed to have that kind of problem, and no one could relate to me. I couldn't relate to them, either. When I went in my room, for example, I had the bare

54

The Process of Attrition necessities. I had a clock. I had just those things I needed. Everyone else had stereos, televisions, VCRs. I didn't have any of that. I just had a hard time relating to everyone else, and just financing the whole operation was difficult, to say the least. On top of that, when I got a job there, I had to save up money and send some home because they needed it, which made paying for it all the more difficult. So that was also a pretty big reason for me not to return...Up until that time, I still thought of just continuing, no matter what problems I was having. I felt that I should keep trying to just come up with the money and just tough it out. But I started to consider other alternatives at that time, like, for example, maybe going to another school which would not be as expensive, and I would not have such a hard time paying for it. So that's when I started considering other schools. Then other students also said that your financial aid award goes down after your first year. Q: Did you receive your notice for the second year? A: Yes, I did. Q: And what was the outcome of that? A: I started gathering information to report it, but I just didn't even bother finishing. I just thought that . . . Q: So you didn't fill out the information for the award? A: Right, for the second year . . . Q: I see. If you took yourself back to when you decided to leave, what one thing would have kept you at [School 3]? A: In retrospect, I think I should have spoken to someone in financial aid. That's what I think I should have done and seen what they could have told me. I think they might have been able to dispel some of the rumors that had been going around, like that your financial aid goes down, because I still don't know if that's true or not, since I didn't bother filling out the form. If I had spoken to one of them, that might have changed my decision. Q: Did you have any consultation with them in the course of thinking about what you would do? A: No, I didn't. No, not at all. I also think if I had spoken to someone in the dean's office, someone in there, they might have maybe been able to change my mind. *** Q: Why did you feel you should leave [School 4]? A: I couldn’t afford it. I’m an out of state student, so I couldn’t afford the tuition...I started to take out some loans. And I started thinking about it and I started thinking that at the rate I was taking out loans I would end up owing like a hundred thousand dollars, once I got out of school. And I didn’t think I was up to paying that. So I decided to find a school around my area to attend. You know it will be cheaper and I won’t have to pay as many loans. Q: What was the financial situation in your first year? A: Going in, it wasn’t too clear. They told me like a lot of stuff but they didn’t come through at the end. And like sometime during November I found myself taking out like twenty thousand dollars in loans. And I tried to apply for

55

College Attrition at American Research Universities financial aid again. I think the filing period is sometime in March. And once I got with my financial aid package again, I think it was in May or June, I saw that I wasn’t going to get enough money — so I decided to transfer. Q: Did you talk with people in the financial aid office about how the situation might be remedied? A: Yeah, I talked to them but they gave me the run around. And I got tired of going to their office like every other week. Q: What did you experience in communicating with them? A: A lot of run around. I felt like they didn’t know my situation even though I tried explaining it. I went from place to place and couldn’t get a straight answer. So I got tired of it after awhile. Q: Did you talk with your academic advisor about leaving? A: Yes, I did. Well I don’t know if it was my academic advisor. It was like the advisor that they assigned to us, like in the SMES, the Society of Minority Engineers. Q: And was that helpful or not? A: She basically told me the same thing. She told me that maybe it would be cheaper to transfer to a school in California. And if I wanted to I could go back to [School 4] whenever I wanted. Q: Did she advise you on how to deal with people in the financial aid office? Or what course of action to take with them? A: Not really. She didn’t know too much either. She was like, I guess like a new advisor. She was just learning what goes on. Q: What did you find in dealing with the financial aid office, that you weren’t satisfied with? A: They couldn’t give me a straight answer. They always gave me the run around. They told me to go talk to this, and this, and then they left and sent me somewhere else. I just didn’t like going through the process of talking to people that, you know, I tried to explain my situation every time I went to that person. After a while I got tired of going through all that.

Viewing students as materials that universities build, polish, and produce, the money side of attrition involves both the intake and processing of those materials. Attempting to maximize returns on only one part of the sequence inevitably short-changes students and schools. The intake portion of the sequence, initiated from the onset of student interest in a school up to matriculation, involves primarily information and knowledge transfer. The processing portion of the sequence involves both continued transfer and intensive contact where not only information is given but also support and expert assistance. The accounts above illustrate four patterns widespread within and across schools.

56

The Process of Attrition First, as for other reasons for leaving college, they illustrate the impetuousness often part of the departure process (most readily apparent in the School 3 and second School 2 accounts above). In many instances, had students initiated contact with appropriate personnel (or had those personnel made contact with the students), the problems could have been resolved. Impetuous departure deepens an information deficit, and often information about costs and finance is all that is needed to retain at-risk students, which raises the second point. Students who leave over money often remark, through direct and indirect comments, on their lack of knowledge about expenses, financing, and the options available to cover costs (most readily apparent in the School 3 and 4 accounts above). Presumably had they received that information, attrition risk would have been lower. Attrition risk would decrease if parents also were informed, or informed more fully, since they often bear a significant fraction of expenses and because financial difficulties that prompt attrition often begin with them. Evidently, the brochures that colleges use to inform people about costs are less effective than they need to be. These findings strongly suggest that schools should invest in initiatives that aim to better communicate the many facets of covering college costs. Third, leavers often commented that communication with financial aid personnel (when such communication took place) was unhelpful (most readily apparent in the School 4 account above). Moreover, leavers added that these personnel tended to be hard-nosed and curt, playing the role of a bill collector or bureaucrat rather than a counselor. These qualities function to place blame — not simply responsibility — on students and their families, exacerbating stress and attrition risk. It is unclear whether financial aid officers realize that they and all their staff often operate as front-line personnel for retention. They are in a position to be a great service to students and their families by supplying financial information in times of acute need and throughout a student’s college career. Finally, students who leave over money often are unaware of the human capital investment and rewards associated with the education they are receiving (most readily apparent in the first School 2 account above). Many such students elect to leave one school for another that has lower costs (and likely a different educational experience) despite the ability to meet costs at the school they leave. These students seemed unaware of the advantages of investment in human capital at one school as opposed to another.

57

College Attrition at American Research Universities Interaction Whereas discussion of timing revealed that students left quickly, an examination of students’ interaction patterns shows that they also leave quietly. Together, these two behaviors — leaving quietly and quickly — create a highly individuated, isolating and often emotionally-charged process that becomes difficult to short-circuit. Much of the talking about whether to leave or stay in school turns out to be done with oneself (but then only hastily) and, when with others, almost exclusively parents. This pattern is pervasive at schools 2, 3, and 4 but not at School 1. Again, because School 1 is distinctive, discussion of the case is reserved for the next chapter. Four of the eight parts of the interview protocol were devoted to interaction, specifically communication with people who comprise three key components of schools that in principle can be viewed to play a role in attrition and retention: faculty, advisors (as distinct from faculty), and residential staff. An additional, open-ended component of the interviews dealt with whether students had contact with any other person or group in the course of deciding to leave. A School 4 student, who began having academic troubles, illustrates the typical communication process in deciding to leave: Q: Can you tell me how you came to decide to leave? How the process unfolded? A: I just took a couple of tests, I failed them, and I just — I didn’t want to waste my money by going — that’s another thing too, it’s really expensive and I didn’t want to just throw my money out the door while I fail out of college. Q: Did you ever talk to a faculty member about the issues that you were confronting? A: Not really, not really. Q: The courses in which you didn’t do as well as you wanted — did you ever talk to anyone in the course about what might be done to correct that? A: No, because it wasn’t — I mean it wasn’t their fault, it was more mine. I just, I couldn’t get the stuff. The tests were really hard. Q: Did you talk with your academic advisor? A: Didn’t even know who he was. Q: What about your resident advisor? A: R.A.? No, I didn’t. I didn’t talk to him either. Q: Anyone else in your residence hall? A: No, not really. I just made my mind up and left.Q: Can you explain how you withdrew? What procedure you took to withdraw?

58

The Process of Attrition A: I just went to one of the offices and asked where do I go to withdraw. And then they told me one place and I don’t think that was the right place. So I went to another place, which I think was in north campus. And they withdrew me. Q: And what did you have to do? Was it complicated? Did you have to fill out forms? A: Not really. It was really easy. They asked me why and I told them, and they just let me go. I don’t remember filling out too many forms. A School 2 student further highlights the typical communication process: Q: When you were thinking of leaving, did you ever talk to a faculty member about doing so?A: Oh, a faculty member! No. Q: Is there a particular reason why? A: I don’t think that I felt very connected to any of the faculty that I was working with at the time. Most of the faculty that I liked personally were in pretty big classes, and I think I just felt sort of detached. I kind of felt as if I was going through the academic motions, but I wasn’t very invested personally in my classes, which made it hard to have connections to the faculty. Q: Did you talk with your academic advisor about leaving? A: No, I didn’t. I didn’t really have any contact with my academic advisor after my freshman year. Q: And why was that? A: Because I didn’t really feel that he had much connection to what I was interested in. He was a really nice man, but he knew very little about the majors I was considering and didn’t — wasn’t really involved in any of the activities I was doing. And so after my freshman year, I'm going to have to talk to him basically to get course approval but then, once that wasn’t necessary anymore, I just didn’t feel that he was offering me much guidance. Q: Did you talk with your resident advisor about leaving? A: I don’t even know who my resident advisor was. Q: Did you talk with anyone else in the residence hall about leaving? A: No. I mean I really don’t feel in my residence hall like there was much administrative presence except for the dean who was in charge, who I did talk to. Q: And what was the outcome of that? A: It was fairly frustrating. I didn’t feel that he was very open to — well, honestly, I think what it came down to was I didn’t really feel that he cared that much about whether or not I stayed. And I had to talk to him to get approval to take time off... I just didn’t feel like I got very far talking to him. Q: Did you talk with anyone else at the University about leaving other than the people that we’ve discussed? A: No. I mean I really didn’t feel like anybody was involved in my life other than my friends and, obviously, I talked to my friends about it.

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College Attrition at American Research Universities Aside from underscoring the character of communication patterns that typify the leaving process, the student raises an additional point: School 2 students are more apt than School 3 or 4 leavers to talk to their friends (in addition to parents) about leaving. This phenomenon may largely be explained by the greater length of time School 2 students stay on average before departing (see table 9). They have more time to make close friends in whom they can confide about problems, thus pointing to the advantages that time itself buys in offsetting attrition. While the students left despite talking to friends, School 2 has a lower attrition rate which may operate partly as a function of the density of friendship ties that intensifies over time. A minority of leavers (eight at School 3; seven at School 2 and seven at School 4) talked to faculty about leaving. But they did so typically only once and typically for only one reason: to solicit letters of recommendation required for transfer schools. In large part, this lack of interaction may be attributable again to time: because students depart quickly, little time is allowed to develop a significant relationship with faculty (true especially for schools 3 and 4). But the lack of communication appears also to stem partly from students’ perceptions that faculty were uninterested in them; the School 2 account above stresses this point, as does the one below: I had some really great professors. But I always had the sense that the university had no need for its students. It seemed to me that the university [didn’t] care whether I was there or not. I mean they don’t know me, I never got a sense that they cared once I was there whether I came or went. Maybe that’s the way of all large institutions, research universities, that sort of indifference. It doesn’t matter to me now because I have a thicker skin and I can take care of myself a lot better, and I'm much more aggressive about getting what I need out of a place. But at the time, that [interaction with faculty] might have kept me there.

A similar minority of leavers talked to advisors about leaving. As with faculty, however, they did so only once, sometimes twice, and typically for one reason: to complete departure paperwork. Communication with faculty and advisors, when it occurs, thus most often takes place at the end of the deliberation process, when students have made up their minds to leave and when, therefore, the effectiveness of intervention is greatly weakened. Q: [To a School 4 student:] Did you talk with your academic advisor about leaving?

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The Process of Attrition A: No, not until after I pretty much decided to. I told him I was probably going to leave, and you know, what should I do. Q: What stand did your advisor take at that point? A: Well I pretty much decided to leave and she could see that. So she just told me what I needed to do. Really didn’t take a stand, just you know, explain what I should do. You know, if I wanted to leave, so she didn’t really tell me — talk to me one way or the other.

A similar minority of leavers talked to residential staff about leaving. As with faculty and advisors, they did so only once or twice. And as with faculty and advisors, such communication normally transpired at the end of students’ deliberation processes. Residential staff were more often informed by students that they would be leaving, that there would by an “empty room,” rather than used for counseling and guidance. But when residential staff were used for counseling and guidance, leavers described their interactions in curiously casual terms. A School 4 student put it this way: “He encouraged me to do whatever I had to do for myself. He knew how I felt. So, he encouraged me to go with my heart.” Another School 4 student, who left seeking warmer climates, conveyed the style brought to the interaction: I’m from Florida, and I grew up down here and spent my life down here, and the winter was a little hard for me to handle, and I just was a little depressed and figured I would enjoy myself better if I was back down here in Florida... Q: To what extent did you talk with your resident advisor about leaving? A: A bit. He was very helpful. I told him what I was considering, and he just explained that he’d finished four years there, and he’d thought about — sometimes — oh, it’s so cold, so far away from home that he’d thought about transferring, too...he was really helpful.

In general, when residential staff at the three schools were used by potential leavers for guidance, the interactional style was permissive. On the one hand, this style is partly predictable, since students’ residences offer a haven from school and where residential staff attempt to cultivate a comfortable environment. On the other hand, permissiveness, by definition, lacks a kind of scrutiny of viewpoints that if exercised would keep some students in school. The issue for the residential staff role (as well as for the advising and faculty roles) becomes one of striking a better balance between understanding and compassion on the one hand and objectivity and rigor on the other.

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College Attrition at American Research Universities Analysis of communication patterns in the attrition process shows how remarkably easy it is for students to leave college. Little talking is done. And even when and where students do talk, the exchange most often occurs shortly before walking out the door, with little scrutiny. Permissiveness enshrouds an impetuous process. A closing passage summarizes the scene: Q: If you took yourself back to when you decided to leave, what one thing would have kept you [in school]. A: I thought about that actually and I thought maybe if in order to disenroll I would have had to talk to a counselor or had to talk to somebody, maybe that would of made me stay. But I mean it was pretty easy just to, I mean dial up the automated admissions, or whatever, and press number seven to disenroll. So I mean it wasn’t very personal. Q: That’s what you did? You dialed up... A: Yep, and it said press, press I think it was number seven to dis-enroll and I thought — I might have been a little unsure until that point. But when I heard that voice say press number seven to dis-enroll, it pushed me over the edge. I could leave pretty easily without any damage, other than [to] a few of my friends that I talked to and worked out with. But I’m sure none of the professors noticed or anything. So I mean it’s not like that upsets me, it just made it easier for me to leave.

Students’ Re-assessments Two patterns are evident in the re-assessment of the decisions students made to leave their schools, and both may be viewed as “non-findings.” First, most students did not regret leaving. A major part of the departure process involves convincing oneself, and usually on one’s own, that the given school is not the place to be. Once the decision is made, there is a sense of no turning back. Lack of regret thus reduces any cognitive dissonance students may experience about their decision and the sense of failure associated with departure that is prone to threaten self-identity. Leaving, and “leaving for good,” sets students on their way, however wayward that course may be. Second, in offering suggestions about what might have kept them at the school they left, students were inclined to say one of two things: one, that nothing would have kept them in school, supporting the cognitive dissonance argument above, or; two, that the obverse of the reason(s) why they left would have kept them in school. The second manifestation simply reproduces the reasons that propelled students’ departures. But as we have learned, reasons in

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The Process of Attrition and of themselves are of little consequence to retention, since correcting any one reason, or any number of them, corrects only a small fraction of attrition (see Table 11). Such findings underscore how the process, and not the reasons, for departure stands as the key area in which to contemplate corrective interventions. Where do students go once they leave? A common view among many people at selective schools is that they go to equally if not more prestigious places. This view turns out to be more myth than reality. Table 13 lists the schools that the leavers now attend. Table 13. Institutions that “Leavers” Now Attend, by School Institutions U. Ill. at Chicago Penn State Cornell U.C. Berkeley Emory Swarthmore

School 1 (N=10)

]

[Employed Institutions Cornell U. Idaho U. Oregon Trinity Coll. (CT) Yale Brown U.N.C. Chapel Hill Colorado State U. U. Virginia Julliard U. Penn U. Illinois U. Florida

4 School 2 (N=24)

Frequency 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

]

[Employed Institutions Salem Coll. (NC) U. Puerto Rico Marquette Sweet Brian Coll. U. Evansville U. Texas-El Paso Illinois Wesleyan Temple Arizona State Ottawa U. (KS) Duke DePaul Wittenburg U. (OH) Montgomery Co. Comm. Coll. Stanford NYU Rutgers Northwestern Martin Luther Coll. (MN) Minnesota U. Ill. at Chicago

Frequency 1 1 1 1 1 1

10 School 3 (N=30)

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Frequency 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1

Wesleyan Whitworth Coll. Harvard Carleton Vassar Northeastern (IL) Marshall U. (WV)

1 1 1 1 1 1 1

[Employed

1]

Institutions Central Michigan Northwestern Marquette Alma Coll. Michigan State Long Beach State U. Miami Wayne State U. U. Indiana-South Bend Lake Superior State U. Kalamazoo Coll. St Thomas Aquinas Coll. Michigan Tech. Cal St.-Los Angeles U. Iowa Washington U. Seoul National U. U. Wisconsin-Madison Rennselaer Calvin Coll. World of Faith Bible Training Center [Employed

School 4 (N=25)

Frequency 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 4]

The table shows that students, from any one of the schools, end up at a mix of places. The table also makes clear that most students who leave these schools are more likely to transfer to another school than to work. (This is less the case at School 2, where 42 percent of the leavers interviewed are presently working; School 1 has an equally high percentage of leavers who are presently working, but the leaver sample is small.)

Summary In the previous chapter, attrition looked random. None of the major demographic characteristics of students could explain attrition in the schools. In this chapter, however, having turned from the demographic context to the process of attrition, and from quantitative and qualitative data, we are able to draw theoretically useful conclusions. When combined with further analysis in the chapter that follows, these findings will also more readily inform policy. Despite the gravity of the decision to leave college, especially a selective, prestigious college where the benefits of attending may be substantial, we have found that students depart quickly. The first year of college is especially critical for retention and, within that year, the first term, and even the first weeks in and

The Process of Attrition leading up to enrollment are extraordinarily consequential for longer-term success. We have also found that students, in any one of these schools, leave for a wide variety of reasons. This would likely be the case at other schools as well. But despite this variety, we discovered, when digging deeper into the departure process, that those reasons are typically arrived at impetuously. That is, students typically leave college for reasons that are overwhelmingly correctable by the benefit of time and often campus resources that can provide needed information. Yet in examining the structure and content of students’ interactions in these schools, we found that very little discussion about departure occurs when students begin to entertain that possibility. Faculty, advisors, residential staff, even students’ friends — to the extent they have had the time to make them — play little role in the process of deciding to leave or to stay in school — at least as the process presently occurs in typical form at these institutions. In looking back upon their decisions to leave, students are convinced they made the right decision, despite realizing that the decision was made quickly and quietly, and despite the likelihood (known or unknown to the students) that their reasons for leaving would stand a high chance of being remedied with time and discussion with campus personnel. This finding is not surprising: cognitive dissonance holds that it is difficult to live with the thought that one has made a partially valid or invalid decision; people come to accept and uphold the decisions they have made. In analyzing the data, it has become apparent that one of the schools — School 1 — stands out. It does so not only because of the objective fact that it retains a greater proportion of its students, but also because it exhibits characteristics — both structural and cultural — that facilitate this high retention. Such a case merits sustained attention. I have reserved discussion of this case because of its stand-out qualities which potentially cast even greater light on the trends found in the other three cases. Thus, it is to the lengthier consideration of School 1 that I now turn.

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CHAPTER IV

STRUCTURE AND CULTURE OF RETENTION What explains the similarities and differences thus far observed among the schools? The data support four of the five hypotheses offered at the outset. The data are consistent with taking admissions selectivity as the key component in retention success. The more selective an institution, the greater its capacity to admit only those students who are most likely to be successful in its environment (the selectivity hypothesis); hence School 1 exhibits the greatest, and School 3 the least, success. In turn, selectivity drives three additional hypotheses: the most selective schools enroll the highest proportion of students for whom the institution was their first-choice (positive start hypotheses); students are more inclined to stay at more selective schools because leaving would be interpreted by others as a sign of failure (social status hypothesis); and the rewards that flow from graduating from very selective schools are sufficiently great to induce persistence (the superior benefits hypothesis) (COFHE 1996). (The data neither support nor refute the fifth hypothesis (“first and final hurdle”) — that getting admitted-to is more difficult than graduating from the most selective schools.) Variation in departure timing lends further support to the claims above. We observed people leaving not only in smaller numbers but after longer periods in the most prestigious schools (schools 1 and 2). Such schools appear to make people think twice, or at least longer, about leaving. Is this phenomenon attributable exclusively to selectivity and prestige? Do other structural and cultural factors come into play? A closer look at School 1, spared in previous discussion for the present in-depth examination, begins to shed further light.

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College Attrition at American Research Universities

A Retention Success Story: Case in View All ethnographic data offer convincing evidence that the heart of School 1’s success in retention lies not only with its selectivity but with the structure and culture of its residential housing system. School 1’s residential system is notable on the one hand for its manifest ability to integrate faculty, advising, and housing in one setting, and on the other for these separate but interacting bodies to exert and enforce “norms of success” among School 1 students. By “norms of success” I mean a school culture in which expectations for superior performance are institutionalized, applicable to and held for all (not just demonstrably able) students, and sanctioned by members of the three interwoven parts of the system — faculty, advising, and housing. While these three agents of the system sanction student success, and while they do so partly as a function of their shared physical quarters with students — a structural manifestation that promotes face-to-face interaction and social control — they are once removed from a group that operates at the front-line of students’ troubles and joys: other students. Most if not all university housing systems designate a focal support role for students. At School 3, this role is played by the “resident head;” at schools 2 and 4, by the “resident advisor’ — all older adults affiliated with their universities, typically as graduate students or staff members. At School 1, however, the front-line role is played by peers, specifically college seniors (sometimes also juniors and select graduate students with School 1 college backgrounds). They are called “freshman counselors,” and they are selectively recruited with an institutional mandate: to see that their “counselees” are successes at school. I interviewed five freshman counselors as a group, posing questions about both how they see and enact their role. Their remarks conformed to how the counselor role is defined by School 1 in its descriptive materials: The major responsibility of the freshman counselor is to help freshmen succeed in their lives at [School 1]. Counselors are thus expected to introduce their freshmen to the diverse experiences of life at [School 1], including the responsibilities and possibilities of the academic world, the residential college system, extracurricular activities, and the other many and various resources of the university.... The counselor identifies and aids the student who does not yet know how to study effectively, who needs help in using the library system, who requires a tutor, or who has trouble budgeting time properly. The counselor’s

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Structure and Culture of Retention educational influence is in fact more pervasive; as a successful student in his or her own work, the counselor becomes a significant example to his or her counselees.

While freshman counselors serve students, they also clearly occupy a role that is mandated to serve students and their school: Freshman counselors are appointed by [School 1] and are thus placed in a position of responsibility for freshmen that is institutional in its nature. A counselor must consequently conduct himself or herself with any member of the freshman class in a fashion that is appropriate to the status of an employee and agent of [School 1’s College] Dean’s Office and of the University...The job...requires personal resourcefulness, character and integrity, energy, good judgment, dedication, and utter discretion. It is also demanding and unusually time-consuming... While the responsibilities of the freshman counselor are heavy, and the demands made on the counselor’s time and energy are great, the experience a counselor enjoys in participating in the education and life of his or her freshmen is one of incalculable richness and satisfaction. The friendships formed between counselor and counselee often last long beyond the departure of both from [School 1].

As the materials convey, however, counselors are not merely friends to their counselees: they are guardians, and counselors stressed the balance struck in being both peers (albeit upperclassmen) to their young charges and university officers operating with a moral mandate. The mandate extends from students’ personal and social lives to their academic lives: counselors have the responsibility of signing their counselees’ course registrations each term, thus underscoring the moral authority that the position carries. While the position is demanding and laden with responsibility, it is prestigious and coveted (typically 300 rising juniors apply for the 90 available slots). The prestige and competition is part testimony to the position’s centrality and effectiveness in the life of the university. The effectiveness of the counselor role is intensified by a number of ancillary features. The people who occupy the position are students’ peers; this accomplishes two major objectives. First, it reduces social distance, maximizing the likelihood that counselors will be approached by their counselees when trouble arises. Second, it increases interaction and exchange, maximizing the likelihood that counselors will observe, learn, and be part of a process of activity and dialogue — they live, dine, socialize, and go to class with the people they

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College Attrition at American Research Universities have watch over. Moreover, counselors are numerous; their ratio is roughly one to sixteen freshmen. The counselor role thus differs in significant ways from, say, a resident headship (occupied by a working adult), where social distance is greater and possibly unevenly established from student to student and where interaction occurs less often (heads often are writing dissertations, working at a job during the day, attending to their own children, and so on). An assistant headship (occupied by an upperclassman who supplements the head’s role) may approximate the role played by a “counselor,” but may often lack the moral mandate and authority that the School 1 position possesses. Further, the effectiveness of the counselor role at School 1 is intensified by its placement and functioning within a moral (as opposed to an exclusively administrative) hierarchy. Counselors have head counselors, who are selected to perform the same duties of a counselor but, additionally, monitor and provide moral support to each of his or her counselor-counselees. Head counselors in turn meet weekly, and sometimes more often, with a residential college dean, akin to a dean of students, who oversees students’ academic lives. Like counselors, deans live on the residential premises. They hold the rank of lecturer and are responsible for teaching a minimal yearly course-load, thus themselves familiar and integrated with the academic life on which they advise their students. Each residential unit also has a “master,” a faculty member and his or her spouse and family who lives on site and who oversees and initiates activities that comprise the social/cultural sides of residential life. Along with counselors and deans, masters may also serve students in an advisory capacity. Like counselors and deans, they perform their role with a moral mandate. (In one of my interviews, a master informed me about one of “his” students who earlier that day came to him for counsel about financial problems he had begun to develop at college. After sorting through the details, the master — a distinguished veteran of the faculty — picked up the phone to ring the college’s financial aid office, informing that office of the student’s plight, of the student’s need for assistance, and of the student’s expected arrival at that office later in the day.) While the School 3 residential system also includes faculty masters, the role in comparison to School 1 seems more passive than active; masters at School 3 do not maintain offices on site. While they sponsor many of the occasional cultural affairs of dormitory living as at School 1, their role and presence is generally removed from students’ day-to-day lives.

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Structure and Culture of Retention Each residential unit at School 1 also has two to three “faculty advisors.” Faculty have offices in students’ residences and their role is similar to that of masters, deans, and counselors: they provide moral support, and they advise students on the academic and intellectual sides of life, particularly those sides that encompass choice of major and long term plans, both in and outside of School 1. (In addition, School 1 has created a system of ethnic counselors. Unlike freshman counselors, ethnic counselors do not perform their roles in the residential colleges. Rather, they use off-site resource centers to which students can voluntarily go for counseling, moral support, or other assistance. There are five centers, one for Asian-Americans, African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans. The ethnic counselor program received mixed reviews from most of the college administrators I interviewed, principally because they felt it lacked a clear mission.) The residential system with all its interacting components of moral authority creates an environment in which there is both watchfulness for the welfare of those establishing membership in a new community and communication with, and on behalf of, one another. These elements are especially instrumental in flagging problems before “it’s too late”; as we earlier observed, attrition often is quiet and quick in character, not easily caught before students are beyond being saved. The norms of success that this moral community attempts to uphold are further stressed by the college dean who oversees the counselor program: Today I had a meeting at 8:00 a.m., and it’s not easy to get these kids out of bed that early. But I had a meeting with all the head counselors and the captains of the varsity sports. We felt that there was some problem with freshmen on the teams, on the varsity teams, and that the captains didn’t know quite how to deal with them. And the freshman counselors had some concerns and they felt that the captains weren’t really in touch with their freshmen. Now, it won’t surprise you when I tell you that one of the major concerns was drinking. The counselors were feeling that the captains in their team initiations were acting irresponsibly. We had a very frank and full discussion where our counselors felt that the captains should take a greater role in, first of all, knowing what the resources are here to deal with drunken kids and, two, to get rid of the culture of drinking.... It was a wonderful meeting.

The example above highlights a special occurrence. The occurrence, however, illustrates the more pervasive moral attributes of the school

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College Attrition at American Research Universities community. While expectations of success are generalized and institutional, they are manifest as a result of proactive people, from counselors to deans to masters. When the dean of a college or the master of a college goes into the dining hall, and they don’t see a particular student, all the antennae go up and they start asking around: “Where is Joe Smith? Where is Mary Jane?” The concern is obvious to the other students. And little by little the problems are rooted out: “Why haven’t I seen you? Have you been sick? Have you taken some time off?” And so the masters and deans develop very close personal relationships with students and, therefore, are able to get them help, whether it’s psychological counseling, whether it’s physical counseling, sending a student to a doctor, and, most importantly here, academic counseling. So every student feels part of the college, part of, if you will, that college family. And a lot of these questions that the masters and deans ask are reactive, obviously, because they haven’t seen the student around, but proactive in the sense that they begin to help the student before the problem gets so bad or so serious that they finally give up, the kids give up in despair and say I can’t do it anymore...They [all] live together, many of them in very close quarters. The master lives right in the college. The dean lives right in the college. We have five or six counselors in each [residential] college who live in the same floor, the same entryway with their students and are there to, first of all, deal with their counselees, with the problems they have and, also, to be the eyes and the ears for the deans. And the deans meet with their counselors weekly or even more, to discuss what has gone on in the week passed with the counselees, whether a student is staying up too late, is not getting his work done, is drinking too much. There is a lot of looking out for someone. (Interview with School 1 dean).

Counselors and residential college deans are appointed by the dean of School 1’s undergraduate college. Residential college masters are appointed by the university president. The authority hierarchy and appointment process itself symbolizes the centrality of and seriousness with which people take the residential system. During my visit, a search got underway. On most campuses, the search and appointment of residential officers are not big news; at School 1, the event was reported in a front-page article in the campus newspaper. “Committee set up to find new Master” was the headline: As [Residential] Master -------- term nears completion, President [James Smith] has announced the creation of a search committee to nominate candidates for his replacement. [Smith] said the search committee...will generate eight to ten candidates for the position... ‘I always charge the

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Structure and Culture of Retention committee and the committee reports to me,’ Smith said (School 1 student newspaper).

Cultural Attributes of Schools and Success It is possible to abstract principle attributes of the culture that characterizes School 1, which I shall call the “culture of enforced success.” These attributes are in turn more apparent when set in contrast to those that define its alter, the “culture of unenforced success,” which, while not derived from systematic observation of patterns in any of the other schools in this study, may apply to one or more of them. Table 14 summarizes the dimensions of the two cultures in terms of four attributes: student mobility; the premise on which rewards are allocated; the moral orientations of faculty, staff, students, and the overall institution; and attributed sources of failure. Table 14. Characteristics of School Cultures that Facilitate and Impede Retention

Attribute

Culture of Enforced Success

Culture of Unenforced Success

Mobility

Sponsored

Contest

Reward Allocation

Group membership

Demonstrated ability

Comprehensive Cooperative Active

Selective Competetive Passive

Systematic

Individuated

Moral Orientation Faculty/Staff Students Institutions Failure

In the culture of enforced success, success itself is sponsored by the faculty. Faculty see the teaching facet of their roles in terms of “bringing everyone along.” Being brought along, or sponsored, is done with the hope that students will accomplish more than what they have already accomplished. While the promise of achievement forms the basis in which sponsorship occurs, sponsorship is itself a reward; the reward is allocated on the basis of group membership. In becoming a member of a school, a student, nearly like becoming a member of an esteemed club, reaps the rewards (and also the responsibilities) of membership. In their orientation to sponsoring students, faculty (and staff) are comprehensive: all students, on the basis of membership, are given the opportunity, and indeed are mandated, to succeed. Students, while they may be ambitious and competitive about their futures, are also cooperative: they realize the benefits of helping one another, which is in part a function of being socialized as integrated

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College Attrition at American Research Universities group members (i.e., students may be aspiring attorneys or doctors, but they are also “School 1” men and women). In short, the overall institutional orientation is active: success is mandated, and people, whether faculty, staff, or students, are watchful of one another and alert before problems blossom into points of no return. Accordingly, failure, when it does occur, is most typically viewed systemically: systems are not perfect — glitches occur. Failure therefore arises when part of the system “breaks down;” but when it does, the response is “we’ll fix it; the problem is not yours.” If there were a motto for the culture of enforced success, it would be: “We will do everything we can to see you succeed.” In the culture of unenforced success, success itself is a contest. The very best and very brightest swim, while the mere best and brightest sink. Faculty bring students along, but on the basis of continued demonstrated ability and merit, rather than on the basis of group membership. Accordingly, the orientation that faculty (and staff) take to students is selective: students are filtered for talent, maturity, and motivation. Realizing what is at stake, students themselves are competitive; there is little or no sense of “we” that is otherwise overrun by a sense of “me” (i.e., there are aspiring attorneys and doctors, but there is next to no meaning connected to being among “School 4” men and women). The overall institutional orientation is passive; help — from resident heads, advisors, masters, faculty, or peers — is available, if you need it; there is little institutional sense of looking out for one another. When it occurs, failure is most typically individuated; the system is thought to work, but the individual unable to manage in it or “hack” its pressures. If there were a motto for the culture of unenforced success, it would be: “You have potential and will succeed according to your own abilities; seek out and come to us for help if you need it.” This is not to suggest that strands of one culture are not found in the other. For example, while group membership forms the premise of reward allocation in the culture of enforced success, rewards do not flow (or flow as readily or evenly) without individual merit — the premise of rewards in the opposing culture. While faculty orientation in the culture of unenforced success is selective, so it is sometimes in the opposing culture: faculty adopt different styles of interaction with students, which vary by interpersonal workplace controls (Bidwell, Frank, and Quiroz 1997) and scholarly field (Vreeland and Bidwell 1966). Recognizing that these cultures — like all cultures — differ internally, the point is to illustrate the central tendencies of each, and how these tendencies endow schools with distinctive norms, values, and identities that vary in their capacity to foster students’ integration and attachment to schools.

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Structure and Culture of Retention The success we observe at School 1 also likely stems from the way in which structure and culture coincide with the timing of college careers. School 1 places a special emphasis on the freshman year. This is key, since most attrition in most schools will occur during or immediately upon completion of the first year. It is plausible that one of the unintended consequences of School 1’s freshmen focus is heightened retention. A focus on the first year helps to establish safety mechanisms for students making a transition from one community to another. While School 1 houses almost all of its freshmen together in a single quadrangle, and while this in turn presents an additional structural variable to note in the success of the program, the success itself may not depend wholly on this structural arrangement. The freshman counselor role may be played and may be just as efficacious in the dormitory presence of a cross-section of college classes as among exclusively freshmen. (Indeed a minority of School 1 freshmen, with their counselors, live under this arrangement — where a mix of college classes live together in a single community. There is no available evidence to suggest that these communities do any worse, or any better, than those made entirely of freshmen.) In light of the structure and culture at School 1, it comes as little surprise that the departure process there — for those who leave — assumes a character different from that at the other schools. The process is, in short, more deliberate: all of the School 1 leavers talked with their residential deans before leaving, normally did so more than once, and typically well before the decision to leave became firm. Often a dean’s attention was called by a freshman counselor, who had been approached by a counselee about problems and/or ambivalence about staying. In contrast to being quiet and quick, the process at School 1, by virtue of its structural and cultural properties, is loud and lengthy: leaving college is relatively difficult to accomplish. I could tell that [my dean] really wanted me to stay and he kept encouraging me “Well maybe if you take some time away, maybe you just need to take some time away, like a semester away and then come back.” He was sad to see me go, I could definitely tell that he was.

While this leaver, like the other leavers, left despite the host of communication measures in place to assess and handle problems at hand, the account illustrates the efficacy of such measures. This, however, raises an additional point. Data has been presented throughout only for those students who did in fact leave; we lack data on those who contemplated leaving, but 77

College Attrition at American Research Universities stayed. Without the latter data, it is difficult to draw definite conclusions about the effectiveness of structures and cultures at any one of the schools in this study. For example, it is possible that many more students who stay than leave consult advisors and residential staff about ambivalence over staying, which would point to an effectiveness of structures and cultures we have not observed with the present data. Moreover, no systematic study of residential and advisory systems at schools 2-4 was conducted as it was for School 1. It is conceivable that those three schools would have higher attrition without their present structures. Nevertheless, with their structures in place, the schools exhibit the variation in attrition that has motivated this work. Despite the lack of systematic comparison in the ethnographic component of this study, the findings from School 1 are highly suggestive about the ingredients required for retention. Admissions selectivity and the structure of dormitories notwithstanding, much of the success story comes down to the way in which front-line roles with freshmen (as well as with all other students) are defined and conducted with an institutional, moral mandate.

Summary This chapter has focused on School 1 — the school in this study with the highest retention rate. It has done so to elucidate key characteristics that distinguish it from the other schools and which help to explain its retention success. School 1 is highly selective, but its selectivity does not alone explain its ability to retain students. Much of that explanation turns out to lie in its residential system. From School 1 to School 4, all of the data underscore the importance of interaction between students and the college environment. The greater such interaction, the more likely students and schools stand a chance to form and build attachments. It is not by coincidence that we see the highest retention in schools where this interaction is best fostered. The profound significance of this point has been stressed by Vincent Tinto, but as discussed in the opening of this work, we have had a much poorer understanding of the actual structural and cultural frameworks in which such interaction most profitably occurs, if and when it occurs whatsoever. However, by “bringing organizations in” to the story of student/school interaction — creating a contextual perspective — we have been able to expand our view. The case of School 1, especially when viewed in

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Structure and Culture of Retention comparison and contrast to schools 2 through 4, accomplishes just this: it is difficult, if not impossible, to adequately comprehend a school’s retention success without taking into account the mediating role played by that school’s structure and culture.The ethnographic and interview data in this study point strongly to the residential system’s ability to “catch” problems before they blossom into quick and quiet attrition processes, the processes more typically found in the other schools whose residential systems are not as elaborate or as widely penetrating of students’ lives. School 1’s residential system, however, is something of a misnomer. In actuality it operates as something more than a physically bounded area where students slumber. The network of university personnel — from deans, faculty, and fellow students themselves — make it operate also as a locale for advising, contact, and communication. The density of contact and exchange, whether formal or informal, points back to issues raised in the Introduction, which emphasized the significance of interaction in organizational context. The “culture of enforced success” found and communicated through School 1’s residential system, and many other parts of that school, make retention part of the school’s moral mandate to have students succeed. This ethos is supported by key structural features of the school — the many residential (and nonresidential) personnel who interact with students, especially freshmen. These personnel help to move students onward and upward, even as doubts, worries, and anxieties come to them, as they come to nearly all students making the transition from high school to college. Situating this interaction in the context of the organization in which it transpires has enabled us to see how the structure and culture of a school make high retention one of its routine outcomes. In other schools, the attrition process is prototypically quiet and quick — vast numbers of students leave year after year. But in School 1, the process — when it occurs — is loud and lengthy; few leave. Viewed differently, School 1 makes it difficult for its students to depart without a degree. It does so not only because of its rigor or because of the pull that prestige alone exerts to keep students in. Rather, it reaches its high retention through its capacity to engage students — from their first days on campus, and even before they arrive — in meaningful interaction with the college environment. The interaction is sustained by the school’s organizational attributes, so vital to retention, as to “enforce” and virtually guarantee, in this case, the success of a school’s students.

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CHAPTER V

LEAVING RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES In broaching the subject of college attrition at American research universities, we at outset raised the question of what would motivate students to leave the most prestigious and selective of postsecondary schools. Rates of attrition would seemingly be lower at schools that take such care in admitting students, who in turn expend considerable time and energy in choosing where to attend college. In light of all the investments made by these schools and students, one might think that those who leave constitute an easily identifiable group — recognizable, in one form or another, for their lack of fit. And in light of the gravity of deciding to leave such vaunted institutions, where the social and economic benefits of attendance and graduation would likely accrue over much of students’ subsequent lives, one might also think that considerable time and care is given — by students and by schools — in navigating this consequential path. The present work has found this not to be the case.

Summary and Discussion This work has generated several findings and conclusions about college attrition at research universities: • Attrition touches men and women in equal proportions. • Attrition is manifest among all racial/ethnic groups, highest in number among Whites, highest in proportion among Blacks and Hispanics. • Attrition is comprised of relatively low and high academic performers, but academic performance is weakest among Black and Hispanic leavers.

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College Attrition at American Research Universities • Attrition is comprised of students with relatively meager and relatively plentiful financial aid packages, reflecting the distribution of aid awards of those who stay; it remains unclear whether in specific cases individuals lack the necessary mix of aid to ensure persistence. • The above patterns hold across the schools in this study, illustrating — perhaps in ways that counter local folk beliefs — how they are more similar to, rather than different from, one another. Furthermore, at most schools, attrition exhibits a pernicious character — in the sense of its ability to damage students and schools while at the same time elude basic measures of control. Students leave quietly and quickly, having not consulted faculty, advisors, or residential staff about their experience. The inverse also holds, and perhaps stands as the root problem: faculty, advisors, and residential staff have failed to reach and engage at-risk students. When such interaction does occur, it usually takes place at the end of the deliberation process, as students request recommendation letters, transfer materials, and complete other arrangements for leaving. Attrition, at all of these schools, results from all kinds of reasons, again stressing the ways in which schools are more similar to, rather than different from, one another. Correcting any one reason, or any set of reasons, usually will not correct large portions of attrition, since the number of students associated with any reason is small. There are exceptions, however: financial and academic problems. Significant gains in retention can be made by focusing on financial counseling and academic remediation (particularly for Blacks and Hispanics, where we most often saw academic preparation and performance below the norms). Such financial and academic counseling would be most effective if it extended before the onset of the college career through its completion. Although attrition results from all kinds of reasons, we have discovered — in taking an organizational view — that those reasons often lack credibility. Students leave impetuously, without information about their school and their potential place in it. Combined with failing to engage, or be engaged by, other people at school, students who leave do so with an extreme information deficit. Interview data strongly suggested that had students stayed longer, most problems would have been worked out over time. The moral is straightforward: adjustment to college for most people (whether they leave or stay) is a big process, and takes time to complete. Hastiness simply adds an element of disaster into the equation. While many of the findings above stress the similarities rather than the differences among schools, School 1 stood out from the group on several key

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Leaving Research Universities counts, particularly those connected to the distinctive character of the departure process at that school. Whereas the departure process is typically quiet and quick, at School 1 it is loud and lengthy. This is attributed primarily to the residential college system at School 1 which, given its structure and culture, exerts control over students more effectively. Within the residential system, the role of freshman counselor is particularly noteworthy: the front-line people dealing with problems are students’ peers who are also “officials”, institutional guardians, working with a moral mandate. This study was launched with a specific question: What accounts for differences in attrition among America’s research universities, and what ultimately can be done to improve the performance of schools and that of students who attend them? Patterns in the findings among the four schools suggest an answer. The structural and cultural characteristics of retention have been discussed for their instrumental roles in attrition and retention: high retention is associated with high admissions selectivity and institutional prestige, both findings consistent with previous research (Astin 1971; COFHE 1990, 1992, 1996). Staggered graduation rates at the schools examined here correspond to staggered selectivity and prestige; thus School 1, where the incentives to stay are highest, makes people think twice about leaving, reflected in the more deliberate character of the departure process at that school. Selectivity may also explain why attrition at School 4 — among the most selective of public universities — is low compared to other state schools. Reduced chances of failure, combined with the prestige of attending, raises the social costs of departure, much like at the private schools School 4 comes to resemble. But this research has also demonstrated that selectivity — a structural feature of schools — is not the only, nor necessarily the most important, variable that affects retention. Building upon previous work (e.g., Tinto 1993 [1987]), this research has also stressed the cultural sides of schools — the norms and values of institutions that promote, in greater or lesser degrees, attrition and retention. High retention is associated with a “culture of enforced success,” evident at School 1, which is set in contrast to the “culture of unenforced success,” more evident at schools 2, 3, and 4. This finding should expand research efforts to more systematically incorporate the role of college culture into studies of attrition and retention. The results of this work clearly indicate the instrumental role that college culture plays in fostering retention.

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College Attrition at American Research Universities What is more, cultural patterns of schools may in many instances be more easily transferable across schools than several of their structural features (such as selectivity) that are found to promote persistence. It may be more plausible (though not of course easy) for a school to develop a more intense ideological stance on retention with, for example, its existing financial aid personnel than to begin strictly limiting the students it admits. In other areas of intervention, cultural forces interact with and feed off of structural ones. Such is the case with several aspects of School 1’s residential system. There is a culture of enforced success, but structural features are created to do the enforcing — the many university personnel, including students, involved in the housing system who exist and are paid to deal explicitly with student advisory issues. School 4’s success as a public university may also be partly attributable to its culture and to other structures within the university. It is more selective and prestigious than many of its public peers. Such selectivity and prestige fosters School 4’s relative retention, as among the private schools in this study. But, as among those private schools, selectivity and prestige fail to tell the whole story of retention. And, needless to say, most public institutions cannot be more selective or prestigious in order to make retention gains, in light of their encompassing missions. Most important, since selectivity and prestige account for only part of the success that some schools see in retention, we are again drawn in the case of School 4 to other factors, including cultural ones that prevent attrition. Despite no systematic ethnographic work having been conducted at School 4, we can make some speculative inferences based upon available information. For example, we do know that School 4 establishes its esteemed identity among its public peers partly through an elaborate and respected residential college system it has developed for undergraduates. It is among the oldest residential college systems among the state universities that have them. In light of the patterns that have emerged in this work, it is plausible that such an intensive residential college system helps School 4 substantially in achieving its high retention, relative to its public peers. Comparison with other, less successful state schools not part of this study would offer a more complete assessment of how those schools produce their divergent retention rates. What can we learn from these cases in order to make greater strides in retention? The answer of course is not to reproduce School 1 in its entirety, for that clearly is impossible, and perhaps not even desirable for most schools. The data

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Leaving Research Universities suggest strongly that the answer lies in altering the process of leaving such that schools maximize the breadth and depth of interaction with students long before their decision to leave becomes final. But as we learned, the process is quiet and quick: people at-risk of leaving typically are not identifiable until they have made up their minds to leave. Altering the process of leaving must therefore be accompanied by a different institutional strategy: institutions must assume that all students are at-risk of leaving, beginning from the moment of their acceptance to enroll. School 1 is defined by a culture of enforced success principally because key people believe in the promise of its students in a religious-like sense. But the university ironically treats all of its students as at-risk failures by the amount of attention it bestows on them. “Risks of failure” are thus reduced by the heavy dosage of social control embodied in the structure and culture of the system. Such a strategy also moves away from unproductive “silver bullet” theories of departure, turning attention away from what are considered to be locally applicable reasons for departure (which if corrected solve only small bits of attrition) to the process of departure (which if altered can potentially reduce substantial amounts of attrition). Moreover, such a strategy becomes especially potent when implemented as part of a “focus on freshmen” (also characteristic of School 1), since it is in this period of college careers when students are at greatest attrition risk. Practically, the strategy is carried-out on the very front lines by freshman counselors, or others in a similar, institutionally mandated moral capacity. Additionally, other steps may be taken to alter the departure process. In the course of finding that the departure process is quiet at most of the schools, we discovered that students often consult their parents, and often do so early in the process. The University of Colorado at Boulder adopted an orientation program designed not only for entering freshmen, but also a separate program for parents. The goal of the parent orientation program is simple, but effective in its capacity to offset attrition: the goal is to educate parents on a variety of topics, including attrition, especially on the customary form that the departure process takes. Parents were informed that they would often be the first people their children would contact when doubts and troubles arose at school. They were informed that such doubts and troubles are common, not simply to students at Colorado, but to all students making the adjustment to college and life away from home. Accordingly, parents were given information to give their children about what steps to take and about who to contact (complete with

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College Attrition at American Research Universities telephone numbers) to remedy their doubts and troubles. In addition, parents were coached on how to provide reassurance, having been educated on the departure process during their orientation. The goal, to put it in the words of a former Colorado official, was to “win parents over as allies,” not in a surreptitious way, but in an educated way such that they could inform and aid when information and aid is usually all that is needed (University of Colorado Retention Official, Personal Communication 1998). Educating parents thus “stages” the process, and in doing so can “short-circuit” departure: it promotes interaction not only between children and parents but between students and schools in a process that is otherwise perniciously quiet. The inclusion of parents in retention efforts also establishes a way for schools to communicate with them, when they may not otherwise be advocates on behalf of retention. That is, parents may at times be initiators of attrition, especially when concerns about college costs arise. But if communication channels have be opened from the onset of their students’ college admission, and if they have received information or attended a college orientation program for parents, then all involved are placed in a position to act in a more informed way if a problem arises. Such measures taken by schools also carry the side-effect of conveying a concern for the educational welfare of students. That alone can have a significant effect on the stance taken and cooperation struck with parents. Increased selectivity also would work on behalf of retention, though, as explained, many schools are unable to be more selective than they are presently (especially public schools), or the marginal gains they can realize in greater selectivity are small (especially private schools). The selection issue, however, involves more than simply admit/accept ratios. It also involves candor about programs, curriculum, mission, and environment — explaining what a school does and does not offer to students. Clarity about programs and place, and truth in advertising, makes greater strides in ensuring academic and social alignments between students and schools, a matter that pertains to the organizational “intake” of students. With faculty, consciousness-raising itself has the potential to offset attrition. It is plausible that faculty are aware of their institution’s attrition only when public rankings of their schools are released, if then. Faculty need to be aware of the problem and of the nature of the departure process. Above all, they need to know that often the single greatest antidote to attrition is attachment to them. The attachments students form with faculty need not be deep (though that is desirable), and likely will not be deep, since those at highest risk —

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Leaving Research Universities freshmen — have not had time to develop such connections. Rather, the attachment, at this stage, more often takes the form of interest and concern. Like much academic endeavor, the interest and concern might be most effectively conveyed through questions: “How are you?” “How are things going?” Such questions, if asked, especially at early transitional points in students’ college lives, stand to have more than simply academic consequence. The positive effects of faculty on retention are borne out through other indictors of their interaction with students. An emerging body of work concerned with “active learning” — classroom pedagogical methods that demand the participation and involvement of students, primarily through discussion in small interaction-conducive classes — has begun to document the direct effect that such connection has on student persistence (Braxton, Milem, and Sullivan 2000). “Active learning,” understood as part of what more generally have been called “involving colleges” (Kuh et al. 1991), forges connections — both academic and social — between students and schools. It does so by integrating students into the educational process while simultaneously communicating to them that schools — and particularly faculty — are interested and engaged with them. Work in the area of active learning is focused on classroom pedagogy. But the principles of that pedagogy, rooted as they are in interaction between students and the college environment, speak directly to the vital role that can be played by faculty on behalf of retention. Thus, while active learning enhances retention, interaction between faculty and students is seen to yield its own independent, positive effects. For those who do leave, in spite of such measures, continued interaction is key. As noted at the outset of this work, students frequently commented in their interviews about how they had never heard from their school once they left. Such indifference seemed to confirm in students’ minds the apathy that often motivated, or at least accompanied, their decision to leave. In touching base with leavers, especially by a personal telephone call, and not long after departure, schools show they are actively concerned about their students, and it serves an added opportunity to communicate information, debunk myths, and extend invitations to re-enroll.

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College Attrition at American Research Universities Generalizability This work has been based on four case studies of American research universities, but do the results pertain only to those four schools? Such is not the normal intention of case study research. The intention is to allow depth of analysis that would otherwise be problematic in, say, survey research or other methods where numerous cases allow greater breadth. However, in allowing for depth, case study research seeks to use the detailed findings it generates to draw conclusions — some firm, others more speculative — about other cases; in this instance, other cases of postsecondary schools. Generalizability beyond the cases studied may also be interpreted as an ironic hallmark of contextual research. On the one hand, contextual research is performed in order to assess the particularities of a phenomenon — attrition — as it is manifest in an organizationally constrained environment, possibly endowing it with a distinctive character within that setting. On the other hand, contextual research — once performed — often yields not only particularities about cases but also universalities applicable to a broader group of cases than the singular one studied. This is true either because cases (e.g, colleges) possess similar characteristics and thus exemplify similar patterns; or because processes (attrition) within cases have, at least in part, a standard form that unites them. Short of actual data beyond the cases studied, the language of generalization often is tentative and speculative — the tone struck here. We have no systematic data outside of the four cases, but several of the findings generated by those cases are likely germane to others. A principle finding of this research is that the attrition process, at most schools, is quiet and quick. We have known that the process at most schools is quick (Tinto 1993 [1987]; most college attrition occurs in or at the end of the freshman year. We have not known about the structure of interaction that guides the attrition process. It is reasonable to suggest that the quiet tenor and quick pace of attrition applies to numerous schools. Where the process is loud and lengthy, attrition was found to be low — yet most schools do not have low attrition rates. This finding, and the accompanying conclusions drawn about effective intervention, probably speak to many schools of various institutional types, beyond that explicitly examined here. Readers are apt to jump on the notion of selectivity and selective schools, wondering to what extent the present findings speak to schools that are less

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Leaving Research Universities selective and less prestigious. However, this research has demonstrated that selectivity is only part, and perhaps a small part, of the retention puzzle. It fails to adequately explain significant differences in retention rates. The cultural factors at play — embedded in “the culture of enforced success” (see chapter 4) — have been found to exert a strong influence on retention, explaining major differences in rates among schools. Most significant, the quietness and quickness of the attrition process found at the schools in this study, however selective they may be, is probably not unique to them. The quickness of attrition is, again, well known (Tinto 1993 [1987]). There is no reason to suspect that its quietness is distinctive of these institutions. One might speculate that selective students at selective schools have a reason to be quiet about wanting to leave: leaving is thought to be stigmatizing, perhaps especially for someone thought to be especially talented at an especially exclusive place. But logically, that would lead us to expect to find a “loud” attrition process at less selective institutions, or at least louder than that found at institutions where the process may be thought to be more personally damaging. Yet if the departure process at those schools was in fact loud, then presumably the voices sounding the alarm would have long since been heard. This is not the case. As documented in the first pages of this book, attrition is one of the most pervasive problems in American higher education. There do not appear to be indications of its lessening. There is also insufficient ground on which to assert that the reasons for leaving college are — to any great extent — systematically different from one school or set of schools to another. As I explained in chapter 3, this runs counter to many local, folk beliefs about college departure. Alleged or imputed reasons for leaving often become sources of institutional identity and typically assume a form of anecdote: “most people leave Columbia because…” or “most of the people who leave Chicago just can’t hack it.” It is clear from the data that most reasons for leaving college fail to cluster in substantial ways so as reveal areas for targeted intervention. There are, in other words, nearly as many reasons for leaving college as there are students who leave. As discussed in chapter 3, two areas constitute exceptions to this overall finding: finances and academic difficulty. Students in greater proportions report these as motivations for their withdrawals. These exceptions may also hold at other schools, even those that are less academically rigorous and less costly, since the felt burdens of rigor and cost are

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College Attrition at American Research Universities of course relative to particular students and their families. By the same token, the larger patterns may also hold at other schools. The randomness of reasons offered by students who left the schools in this study is not distinctive, because it is found across different schools. It would likely be found at most other schools as well. As with reasons for leaving, the way in which it is decided to leave also stands to have wide generalizability. This breadth of applicability underscores how given intervention measures can achieve efficacy in their ability to retain more students. The impetuousness of deciding to leave college is probably less characteristic of students at particular institutions than of students at a particularly momentous transition in the life course. Students at college, particularly early in their undergraduate careers when attrition-risk is highest, have few people to whom to turn. The decision to leave is most typically made in social isolation, an exception being students’ contact with their parents, as discussed earlier. As the process currently unfolds at most schools, there are few people involved who could potentially circumvent attrition by making the process more deliberate. Part of making the process more deliberate would involve the transfer of information about available resources and support mechanisms, many of which may already be in place on given college campuses. To be certain, there may be reasons for leaving that arise at specific schools that are peculiar, and which call for particularistic ways of contending with them. And, of course, there may be other factors that peculiarly situate attrition, how it unfolds, and how it can be remedied, at particular schools. This would be consistent with a contextual perspective on attrition. The foregoing discussion has been offered to highlight possible ways in which attrition stretches across school boundaries. Given trends in the data, in many instances there is no reason to think that the courses of action taken in response to attrition cannot also cross institutional lines.

Lessons from a Contextual View This work has adopted a specific theoretic focus — what has been called a contextual perspective on college attrition. This perspective has been introduced in response to prevailing currents in the literature on attrition so that discussion and debate may be advanced, and possibly reframed in light of this contextual view and what it has yielded.

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Leaving Research Universities Vincent Tinto’s work, along with the many studies that have followed in response to his exemplary research, has stressed the importance of interaction between students and the school environment for its capacity to foster college persistence. Persistence is fostered specifically, according to Tinto’s theoretic framework, by the academic and social attachments forged between student and school, made possible by the interaction that places each in contact and exchange with one another. The more interaction between students and schools, the greater likelihood that students will form school bonds, which will stabilize and advance them, both academically and socially. Students thereby become attached to an educational enterprise that includes interpersonal contacts — a social glue that, among the many important outcomes its produces, keeps them in school. While we have known interaction to play a profoundly key role in a school’s ability to retain its students, our understanding about the setting of this interaction has been much more impoverished. Research has been relatively silent about the organizational frameworks of schools in which consequential interaction for students occurs. Fundamentally, we have not known whether the nature of interaction — its frequency, scope, and content — varies where attrition rates themselves vary. Most pressing, we have had yet to explore how such interaction might be organizationally constrained, possibly producing the different attrition rates we observe among schools. The contextual perspective adopted here has sought to fill this void by bridging an interactionist emphasis with an organizational one: we have examined attrition in the context of the school arenas in which it occurs. This contextual view has stressed not only the structure but also the culture of schools as instrumental in contributing to different attrition outcomes. To help place this perspective in its own context, and to provide a concluding discussion about what this perspective has contributed and how it may move discussion about attrition forward, two important lessons have emerged. The first lesson is empirical, the second theoretical. Empirically, this work has departed from much previous research by adopting a people-oriented view of attrition. It has been based substantially on interviews with college leavers — the people who are all-too-often unheard from in the attrition literature. Yet the people who themselves have experienced the phenomenon present a significant opportunity to view attrition in greater context.

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College Attrition at American Research Universities In examining students’ accounts and finding patterns among them, we have revealed important similarities and differences between schools — important not only for making strides in scholarly debate but also for making informed education policy decisions. Among the most significant empirical findings was the quiet and quick process that attrition comes to typically take in these schools. This offers key insight into the structure and sequence of student/ school interaction for those embarking on a path toward attrition. It also provides crucial information in formulating effective intervention strategies. Theoretically, this work has departed from previous research by asking why schools in the same niche of American higher education — research universities — exhibit different attrition rates. The lesson offered by the contextual perspective is that college culture not only matters, but can explain dramatic attrition differences across schools. In removing college culture, we remove ourselves from fully comprehending the mediating role that schools play in producing high attrition on the one hand or high retention on the other. Yet, of course, we cannot “remove” the culture from the schools that are defined by it. It is there in meaningful ways for students. And it is there for us to find meaningful ways to study it further, so that its meaning may reach more of the nation’s college-going students. Such will occur by continuing to “bring organizations in” to the analysis of how schools retain and loose students in context. There will never be 100 percent retention in any school. But at research universities, as at all schools, significant gains are waiting to be made. This research, like that offered elsewhere, provides no magical formula — and we cannot expect one. The story stands to show that the problem, and solutions to it, are complex indeed. We have, however, identified key arenas and processes where attention will result in improved performance, for schools and for students. Above all, we have seen success accompanied by moral commitment, sanctioned through the roles that people perform in, and on behalf of, their schools. It is here, then, with a mandate where our study concludes and where larger discussions and initiatives may begin.

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APPENDIX

ATTRITION AT AMERICAN RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES Interview Questions Hello, I’m trying to reach _____________. My name is ____________________ calling on behalf of [School 1/2/3/4]. I’m calling in regard to a study at the University about why students have left [School 1/2/3/4]. Your name is part of a list of people we are contacting in order to get more information about students who have left. Do you have a few moments to talk a little bit? There are a few questions I have that I think would be most helpful, but before we actually begin, I would like to read a short statement, okay? [MUST READ VERBATIM] This is a study about how students decide to leave [School 1/2/3/4]. The information you share is very important: it will help us not only understand people’s experiences better, but will help solve some problems that might exist at the University for undergraduates. Your participation in this study is completely confidential; nothing you say will ever be attributed to you, and you should feel comfortable in speaking candidly about your thoughts and experiences. If, during our conversation, you have questions you would like to ask me about the study, you should feel free to ask at any time. Finally, because we’re talking with so many people, we like to tape-record the conversation simply to keep track of information, but this will in no way compromise confidentiality. Is that okay with you?

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College Attrition at American Research Universities A. The Process of Leaving 1. I understand you left the University after the [Autumn, Winter, Spring] Term of your [1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th] Year. When did you actually decide to leave? 2. Why did you feel you should leave the University? 3. What were the factors involved in deciding to leave? Probe: Which of these factors was the most significant? Why? 4. Can you tell me how you came to decide to leave? Probe: [If necessary: I’m trying to understand how you thought about leaving.] Could you walk me through the process of how you decided to leave? What were your concerns? What was going on in your mind?

B. Faculty 1. Back when you were thinking of leaving, did you ever talk to a faculty member about doing so? Probe:[If yes] Can you describe this experience? Did you find talking with a faculty member helpful? Why?/Why not? Is there something you felt you gained in talking to a faculty member about leaving? [If no]Why do you think you never talked to a faculty member about leaving?

C. Advising System 1. 2. 3. 4.

To what extent did you talk with your academic advisor about leaving? What did you talk about? Probe: Were any kinds of issues sorted out, in your mind? What stance did your advisor take about leaving? Was this experience helpful to you? Probe: [If so] Why? [If not] Why not?

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Leaving Research Universities D. Housing System To what extent did you talk with your resident advisor about leaving? What did you talk about? Probe: Were any kinds of issues sorted out, in your mind? 3. What stance did your resident advisor take about leaving? 4. Was this experience helpful to you? Probe: [If so] Why? [If not] Why not? 5. Did you talk with anyone else in your residence hall about leaving? Probe: Your R.A.? Other students in your residence hall? What was the outcome of this?

1. 2.

E. Additional Communication 1.

Did you talk with anyone else at the University about leaving? 2a. [If yes] What resulted from that? Probe: Did it help, and if so, how? What attitude did (he/she/they) take? 2b. [If no] You didn’t talk to anyone? Probe: Why didn’t you talk to people, or to more people?

F. Re-Assessment 1. If you took yourself back to when you decided to leave, what one thing would have kept you at [School 1/2/3/4]? Probe: [If necessary] Force yourself to identify one factor. What stands out as something that would have helped in your stay at [School 1/2/3/4]? 2. What could the University have done to prevent you from leaving? Probe: Do you wish there was something someone could have done for you, or something someone could have said, that would have reduced your chances of leaving?

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College Attrition at American Research Universities G. Post-School 1/2/3/4 1.

Can you tell me what you are doing now? Probe: [If working, hasn’t finished college] Where do you work? [If working, finished college] Where do you work? AND Where did you finish college? [If in school] What school do you now attend? Conclusion

Those are all of the questions I have. Is there anything more you would like to add, anything that would help me understand this better? Thank you very much, you’ve been very helpful, and I appreciate the time you’ve taken to talk with me. I’ll let you go now, and thanks again. Bye.

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College Attrition at American Research Universities Blanchfield, W.C. 1971. College Dropout Identification: A Case Study. New York: Utica College. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -------. 1973. “Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction.” In R. Brown (ed.) Knowledge, Education and Cultural Capital, 487-510. London: Tavistock. -------. 1971. “Systems of Education and Systems of Thought.” In M.K.D. Young (ed.) Knowledge and Control: New Directions for the Sociology of Education, 189-207. London: Collier Macmillan. Boyer, Ernest L. 1990. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. Princeton: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. -------. 1987. College: The Undergraduate Experience in America. New York: Harper and Row. Boyer Commission. 1998. Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America’s Research Universities. Princeton: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Braxton, John M. 2000a. Reworking the Student Departure Puzzle. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. -------. 2000b. “Reinvigorating Theory and Research on the Departure Puzzle.” In John M. Braxton (ed.), Reworking the Student Departure Puzzle, 257-274. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Braxton, John M. and Leigh A. Lien. 2000. “The Viability of Academic Integration as a Central Construct in Tinto’s Interactionalist Theory of College Student Departure.” In John M. Braxton (ed.), Reworking the Student Departure Puzzle, 11-28. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Braxton, John M., Jeffrey F. Milem, and Anna Shaw Sullivan. 2000. “The Influence of Active Learning on the College Student Departure Process.” Journal of Higher Education 71:569-590. Braxton, John M., Anna V. Shaw Sullivan, and Robert M. Johnson, Jr. 1997. “Appraising Tinto’s Theory of College Student Departure.” In John C. Smart (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, 12:107-164. New York: Agathon. Cabrera, Alberto F., Maria B. Castenada, Amaury Nora, and Dennis Hengstler. 1992. “The Convergence between Two Theories of College Persistence.” Journal of Higher Education 63:143-164. Cabrera, Alberto F., Amaury Nora, and Maria B. Castenada. 1993. “College Persistence: Structural Equations Modeling Test of an Integrated Model of Student Retention.” Journal of Higher Education 64:123-139. Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. 1994. A Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Princeton: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

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