Retention Begins with Admission

1. Retention Begins with Admission • Lana Muraskin • LMuraskin@yahoo.com • c/o Pell Institute, COE

2. Retention Begins with Admission How can Upward Bound and Talent Search staff help improve the college retention prospects of their participants?

3. Selecting the right college • Do you know the retention and completion rates of the colleges you recommend or the colleges that attract most of your participants? • How do you weigh these rates against other considerations?

4. Are there substantial differences in graduation rates among colleges that serve large shares of low income students?YES!

5. Results from Previous Pell Study • “Raising the Graduation Rates of Low Income College Students” • Sought institutions with large shares of low income students • Found major differences in institutional resources and performance

6. Range of Six-Year Graduation Rates in the Sites We Visited • Among private colleges: 6% to 65% • Among public institutions: 6% to 49% • All were institutions with large shares of low income students.

7. For all four-year colleges with the largest share of Pell recipients (top quintile) • The median grad rate is 41% but the range is from 6% to 99% for private institutions (median Pell rate is 49%) • The median grad rate is 28 percent but the range is from 6% to 57% (median Pell rate is 58%)

8. HGR/LGR comparison

9. HGR/LGR Comparison

10. HRG/LGR Comparison

11. HGR/LGR Comparison

12. HGR/LGR Comparison

13. HGR/LGR Comparison Summary/Discussion • HGR institutions: more full-time students, more traditional age, more full-time faculty, lower ratios of students to faculty, more graduate students, greater pre-student expenditures but still have lower per-student spending than all four-year colleges. • LGR face challenges in providing education--especially the private institutions: all of the private LGR institutions in the study spent less than any private HGR institution. • LGR institutions spend less and probably enroll students with greater academic need than HGR institutions.

14. What about institutions with large numbers of low income students? • Our new study looked at large public institutions because that’s where more low-income students enroll • Six-year grad rates among these public colleges, with some of the largest numbers of low-income students nationwide, ranged from 22% to 72%.

15. How can you identify institutional performance? • Education Trust’s “College Results Online” (collegeresults.org) • You can look up any four-year college • Two-year college graduation rates are available, but harder to find in a central location • Contact institutions or look online for their outcomes.

16. What can you do after the decision’s been made? • UB/TS staff: familiarize yourselves with the paths that lead to better freshman outcomes and start students on those paths • Course selection • Academic support • Social links • Arrange for students to make early contact with the college they plan to attend.

17. After admissions but before school starts…what’s important • Research on SSS and other programs finds this period is critical • Many effective SSS projects don’t wait for students to show up in the fall to start service

18. Lessons from SSS “Best Practices” and other studies • Summer Bridge an effective strategy • Pre-college developmental education • Extended orientation • Early intrusive advising—as early as end of senior year in high school

19. Successful SSS Projects • Project-designed freshman year experience • Academic support for developmental and popular freshman courses • Extensive student contacts

20. Get your students “hooked up” • With SSS • With comparable programs • Institutional • Departmental • Affinity

21. SSS Role in Admissions? • Yes • Policy role: establishing general standards as well as conditions for “special admits” • Reviewing applications • Committing to guiding at-risk students