With growing concerns over higher education accountability and diminishing resources, student persistence rates and the reasons why students remain at a post-secondary institution continue to persist. Using the Backward Design Model, the purpose of this observational study was to determine the difference between the pre-college characteristics of the alumni who graduated with their undergraduate degrees from a commuter institution and incoming freshmen who declared a major within the same institution. Using a series of ANOVAs with survey data, the results yielded significant differences between the alumni and incoming freshmen. By using the pre-college characteristics of the alumni to establish a baseline for undergraduate majors, comparisons could be made between incoming freshmen and the alumni and could improve student persistence and graduation rates.