Retain the Students you Recruit
Once you recruit a class, the last thing you want to think about is retention. But when you consider the cost of recruiting an undergraduate student is more than $2,300 and you include the loss of full 4-year tuition—the cost of students leaving before graduation is high.
Add to this the special challenges with classes recruited during COVID. Current prospective students are skipping the usual pathway to school searches - not always consulting their counselors or visiting schools. Because of this, many arrive on campus without the traditional transition support as they move from high school to college. This adds another twist to the retention conversation and may require extra services to support their campus transition.
When you focus on your current retention efforts or are thinking of starting a program, here are a few things to consider:
How well are you spending your retention dollars?
Reviewing and resetting your retention activities is a good thing to do. Survey your students a few times a year to uncover problem areas. It could be as simple as a congested hallway in a dorm or as big as the lack of proper career counseling. Without knowing exactly where to make improvements, you could be spending money where it doesn’t actually count.
Have you taken the pulse of student needs recently?
Over the years issues regarding student retention have moved from academic to more mental health concerns. Now you need to take stock on a regular basis of where students seem to drift away from community life combined with issues around academic performance. Understanding when you should intervene can reduce long-term effects.
Will students pay attention?
The best intentions will fall flat if you’re not reaching students. Finding a way to make wellness a seamless part of the student experience is one approach to embedding these conversations in the everyday life of the school. Adding all-campus sessions around wellness at a key point before finals might be the solution. Or bring students together for a Lunch and Listen with a visiting artist.
Should you engage faculty?
Faculty can be your front line for identifying student retention issues. But do they know what to look for or do they have a pathway to share their observations with the administration? Simply connecting with faculty and empowering them to reach out could make all the difference.
