Reactive and Proactive Student Support

Student retention is, and probably always will be, an ongoing discussion in higher education. I personally believe that there are a number of factors that affect student retention and most of these factors cannot be accurately predicted or remedied by an institution. In Simpson’s (2008) chapter, he discusses reactive versus proactive retention strategies.  A reactive strategy discussed by Simpson (2008) included “strategies aimed at retrieving students who have just withdrawn from their course or withdrew in some previous year…” (p. 200). Although Simpson (2008) reports “a retrieval rate of around 10%” of withdrawn students, it seems unlikely to me that many students who have just withdrawn will be easily convinced to go back to school. I guess it doesn’t hurt to try and convince students to come back, especially if the effort made is minimal as far as staff and cost.

 Among adult students in the 25 and up range, it would seem that the work-life-school balance would be a large part of withdrawals, as well as financial restrictions.  I think that identifying these students upon enrollment and giving them additional support would help in the retention effort. As Simpson (2008) points out, “…it should not be difficult to predict individual new students’ chances of success from their personal characteristics—such as age, gender, previous educational level, and other factors—using a logistic regression analysis of previous students’ success rates, and applying that to the new students” (p. 200).

In thinking about strategies for student retention, I thought about my experience here at UMUC. I don’t recall any specific student retention activities directed specifically towards me, other than receiving a few emails and calls from my student advisor.  I have probably only spoken to her once or twice during my time here at UMUC which has been about three years. I would think that I’m a “high-risk” student, but maybe not so much, since most of the students here at UMUC are balancing school, work, and family. Perhaps if I were in a graduate program on a traditional brick-and-mortar campus, I would be categorized as a “high-risk” student?

Simpson, O. (2008). Cost-benefit of student retention policies and practice. In W.J. Bramble & S. Panda (Eds.), Economics of Distance and Online learning, (pp. 162–178). New York, NY: Routledge.