COMMUNITY COLLEGE RETENTION !

Community College Retention:

Institutional Elements Affecting Student Completion

Natalie Parker

East Carolina University

Author Note

Natalie Parker is a graduate student in the Department of Communications at East Carolina

University. Correspondence concerning this article should be sent via email.

Contact: parkern17@students.ecu.edu
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Abstract

This paper reviews institutional elements affecting community college student retention. It

describes key findings from recent scholarly research studies on student retention. This paper

also highlights strategies found to improve student retention.

Keywords: community college, student retention

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Introduction

Measuring and improving community college student retention is critical for students, the

community and higher education institutions (Fike & Fike, 2008). Student retention is most

important for the student to succeed and have a life skill to be independent and successful in the

workforce. The community needs skilled workers and retention is important to producing our

economic workforce (Fike & Fike, 2008). Retention also impacts college funding. If a student

drops out, the institution no longer receives their money. Also, performance funding has used

completion and transfer rates as part of state funding formulas. Students and colleges vary

greatly, which makes tracking student retention a complex endeavor with many factors affecting

both the individual student’s situation and the leadership that shapes the college environment.

Literature Review

Over 70% of community college students never attain a certification or degree after five

years of enrollment (Kraemer, 2013). What impacts student retention at a community college?

Admissions testing, financial aid, student services, curriculum, leadership, peer interaction,

faculty-student interaction, GPA and involvement with extracurricular activities are factors

affecting student retention (Travers, 2016). The factors vary from a community college campus

to a four year university (Fike & Fike, 2008). Students are older at a community college with

over 60% being over 25 (p. 70). Community colleges have a higher percentage of minorities (p.

70). There is a higher percentage of both low-income and part-time students on community

college campuses (p. 70). Because of the lower qualifications for entrance, community college
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students can also be less prepared than university students. These differences warrant a specific

focus on how to better address student retention not as a collective in higher education, but

retention specifically in community colleges.

Advisement as a Retention Tool

In 2001, Atlantic Cape Community College decided to have faculty make a big effort to

reach out to students to offer advisement. Previously, the “vast majority” of their 5,000 students

had been advised by non-faculty (McArthur, 2005, p.4). The arts and humanities faculty

received training, then the arts and humanities faculty made a huge push to make contact with

students and advise them. The following semester student retention from the arts and humanities

students was 3% higher than the other department at the college (p.14). Duplicating this study at

a larger college would continue to track the impact of advisement on retention.

Institutional Characteristics

Yu’s study on differing models of student retention identified the following elements as

most critical: percentage of part-time faculty, ACT and SAT scores, student working hours,

institution size, percentage of minority students and percentage of female students (2015). He

groups these elements into two categories, student academic integration and student social

integration. Using data from the 2003/04 school year, he analyzed the data of 1940 students to

see the overall impact of elements affecting student retention across 50 colleges. Yu found that

larger community colleges have lower completion rates (p. 96). He also found that the higher the

percentage of female students is, the lower the completion rates are. He noted that childcare was

the number one reason that women drop out of college (p. 96). Yu’s study showed that diversity

is a strength and increased retention was shown for schools with larger minority populations (p.
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97). Overall, Yu’s study also found that strong academic and social integration equals strong

student retention. This is a good general formula for increasing retention.

Teach Self-Esteem

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave a $3.2-million grant to a coalition of over

1,000 colleges called Campus Compact (Mangan, 2015). Service based learning projects are

used as part of a peer tutoring program on community college campuses in a program called

Connect2Complete. Students are empowered to share their skills and tutor their peers on

remedial classes that they actually took themselves. The students being tutored are able to see

how you can achieve academic success and give back to your community. Student retention

among participating students grew from 26% to 32% during the program (Mangan, 2015).

Remediation and Online Courses

In a study of over 9,000 first year community college students, Fike and Fike identified

the biggest elements of student retention to be developmental education programs, online

courses, financial aid, education level of their parents, the number of courses dropped during

their first semester, and participation in the student support services (p. 68). Remediation for

students was a critical element for student success in this study, which estimated that “two

million students would drop out of college annually” without remedial classes (p. 80). The

second biggest indicator of student completion was online class (p.81) While the study made no

claims to why this seemed to foster student retention, it seems clear that non-traditional students

are often older with more commitments and need flexible scheduling that online classes offer. If

they have a sick child, they don’t have to miss class. They can make their online class while

staying home with their sick child. Convenience of taking a class is key.
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Orientation for Online Courses

To improve student retention with online courses an online orientation course benefits

student retention. The online orientation should “address everything from technical issues and

the technical requirements of online learning, to course expectations, etiquette, and course

procedures” (Robichaud, 2016, p. 58). Taylor did a study to see student retention in online

courses comparing the drop rate to courses with and without an online orientation in five

different courses (Taylor, 2015). In four of the five courses, the online orientation increased

student retention in the course. Focus groups with students would be able to attain how to

improve the orientation course. Taylor suggested future research to expand the study to a much

larger student sample.

Team Leadership

A study of Inver Hills Community College (IHCC) student retention showed that helping

the student becoming more engaged with an orientation class was important (Stebleton &

Schmidt, 2010). The bigger finding in studying IHCC’s process of creating and implementing

initiatives for better retention was that folding in employees at various levels of authority can

create a healthy boarded perspective on what students need. Particularly to this study, community

college counselors were instrumental in developing the orientation class, building relationships

with students and catching issues before they resulted in a student dropping out. The word,

“governance” was not mentioned in the study, though it describes a wonderful team leadership

style of governance that took the expertise of all key faculty into consideration in planning

leadership initiatives. The study made clear that good two-way communication between all staff

and leadership is very important to student retention.

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Classroom Management

Saret developed a list of classroom management strategies to improve student retention.

A central theme of the directives is to be positive. Excitement for a topic is contagious. Faculty

should be enthusiastic and build relationships with their students with two way communications

(Saret, n.d.). It is not enough for an instructor to provide a biography of themselves, faculty must

also listen and learn about their students. Faculty must also listen to student feedback about the

syllabus and be considerate of the class’s other responsibilities (Saret, n.d.). Faculty should be

honest about their own struggles learning and intentional to encourage and praise in feedback

(Saret, n.d.). With students who are struggling academically, faculty should be proactive in

reaching out (Saret, n.d.). As advising is a proven factor in improving student retention, advisors

should be invited to speak and put a face to their name (Saret, n.d.). A representative from

student services could drop in with a few sentences on their offerings. If term papers are part of

the course, faculty can provide resources for researching and required style format. Extra credit

could be given to students for attending relevant on-campus activities and participating in

department clubs (Saret, n.d.). All of these classroom management suggestions are provided by

Saret to improve student retention at community colleges.

Discussion

There are two things that can be done to improve student retention nationwide. Reducing

faculty load and implementing programs that have been proven successful at improving student

retention are the keys to more wide spread success in community colleges.

Student-faculty interactions are crucial to student retention. Balancing faculty fatigue

against meaningful interactions with all students should be a big consideration for college
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leadership. College governance must weigh staff feedback and initiatives heavily if they are to

carry so much of the weight of student retention. The biggest question that community college

leadership should be asking is- how can the college better support faculty in order for them to

have more time to create meaningful relationships with students? Supporting faculty in a way

that they have more time to develop relationships with students can take the shape of a lost list of

faculty support. Tutoring and writing centers free up faculty. Offering templates for grading

rubrics, lunch delivery, courier service, teachers assistants, streamlined paperwork and valet

parking during peak hours for intercity locations are items that could offer faculty more time to

advise and encourage students to stay connected to their program.

Community college leaders generally know the elements that are most important to

student retention. There are plenty of best practice articles and resources about increasing

student retention. Getting bogged down in creating initiatives and working through the obstacles

of a new initiative is time consuming. Colleges can skip a great deal of planning and research by

using the footprint of successful programs. Why create the wheel when there are case studies

documenting programs used at community colleges with above average retention? Hanover

Research studied three community colleges with above average two-year graduation rates that

hover around 50% (Hanover Research, 2014, p.24). Hanover Research detailed the programs

used to attain above average student retention at South Florida State College, Community

College of Baltimore County, and Tallahassee Community College.

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Conclusion

The average community college student retention is surprisingly bad. There is not a

simple formula to increase it. The many complex elements involved with student retention make

it difficult for faculty with heavy work loads to address. The research studies noted in this paper

provide scholarly research on the different factors that are proven to improve student retention

but none of the factors or initiatives studied made a double digit impact. The gains for improving

each factor affecting student retention were small. Faculty advisement had a three percent

student retention gain (McArthur, 2005, p.14). The other scholarly studies presented had

similarly small gains from addressing individual areas affecting student retention. For future

research, more studies should be done on campuses that have the highest retention rates. The

most impactful student retention programs at the 20 community colleges with the highest student

retention should be detailed and widely shared. If a wide range of successful community

colleges are studied, then help for schools could be available with focus on a similar trade or key

subject area. National organizations should do a better job of communicating with the successful

community colleges on the details and most important aspects of their programs that increase

retention. These best practice programs and case studies should be reviewed and shared widely

through nationally recognized organizations.

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References

Fike, D. S., & Fike, R. (2008). Predictors of First-Year Student Retention in the Community

College. Community College Review, 36(2), 68–88. https://doi.org/

10.1177/0091552108320222

Hanover Research. (2014). Best Practices in Retention at Community Colleges. Retrieved from

https://www.hanoverresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Best-Practices-in-

Retention-at-Community-Colleges.pdf

Kraemer, J. (2013, May 9). Comparing Community College Completion Rates. Retrieved

from http://ncee.org/2013/05/statistic-of-the-month-comparing-community-college-

completion-rates/.

Mangan, K. (2015, April 17). To Improve Retention, Community Colleges Teach Self-

Esteem. Chronicle of Higher Education, p. 10.

McArthur, R. C. (2005). Faculty -- Based Advising: An Important Factor in Community College

Retention. Community College Review, 32(4), 1–19.

Robichaud, W. (2016). Orientation Programs to Increase Retention in Online Community

College Courses. Distance Learning, 13(2), 57–64.

Saret, L. (n.d.). Retaining student in classes: Putting theory into everyday practice. Retrieved on

September 8, 2019 from http://www.oakton.edu /user/1/lsaret/

LauraSaretOaktonWebSite/Ways%20Faculty%20Can%20

Encourage%20Student%20Retention.htm
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Stebleton, M. J., & Schmidt, L. (2010). Building Bridges: Community College Practitioners as

Retention Leaders. Journal of Student Affairs Research & Practice, 47(1), 78–98. https://

doi.org/10.2202/1949-6605.6018

Taylor, J. M. (2015). Innovative orientation leads to improved success in online courses. Online

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Travers, S. (2016). Supporting Online Student Retention in Community Colleges. Quarterly

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Yu, H. (2015). Student retention at two-year community colleges: A structural equation modeling

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