Academic institutions invest significant sums of money to serve their students and to influence their decisions to stay. This study sheds light on the challenge for academic institutions to allocate their investments to keep students and enhance their retention rates. This study aims to investigate whether or not providing academic services has affected the retention rate in Ontario's higher education market. The variable of academic services is measured through an examination of the effect of providing student services, technology and library acquisition, and scholarships and bursaries. The retention rate variable reflects students returning to an institution for the second year. The results of this study were reported based on examining the responsiveness; first, for all universities together (the whole market), and then for each university in Ontario's higher education market.