Identifying and supporting high-risk students are critical to increasing retention and persistence. What makes some high-risk students able to succeed, while others attrit? This article argues that early success in college courses is a key factor in resilience among high-risk students. Enrolling students in skill-appropriate courses during their…

In 2004, Sanlo published a proposed method to examine the lives and experiences of lesbian, gay, and bisexual college students and their persistence to graduation. Transgender students were not included except with regard to their identifying as a sexual minority. To date, neither further articles nor research of a similar nature have been…

Retention literature and concepts warrant examination through the lens of queer theory, a poststructural body of thought about sexuality and gender, to understand their implications for queer students. Five themes found in the retention literature are addressed from a queer perspective: framing retention as an economic and labor problem; campus…

For learners to actively accept responsibility in a virtual classroom platform, it is necessary to provide special motivation extending across the traditional classroom setting into asynchronous online learning. This article explores specific ways to do this that bridge the gap between ground and online students' learning experiences, and how…

For years, our prevailing view of student retention has been shaped by theories that view student retention through the lens of institutional action and ask what institutions can do to retain their students. Students, however, do not seek to be retained. They seek to persist. The two perspectives, though necessarily related, are not the same.…

This article contributes to the literature addressing the needs of increasing student enrollment and retention across university campuses by identifying programs where progress can be made to improve the student retention rate and increase university enrollment. This article derives from a provisional program that began in the fall of 2009 at a…

Theoretical models designed to predict whether students will persist or not have been valuable tools for retention efforts relative to the creation of services in academic and student affairs. Some of the early models attempted to explain and measure factors in the "college dropout process." For example, in his seminal work, Tinto…

This study investigated qualitatively how undergraduate students experienced the Great Recession at a flagship university in the South Eastern of United States and how this experience relates to their retention. Results indicate that the Great Recession has significantly impacted students' engagement and commitments. We argue that student…

The primary theoretical tradition in the study of college retention has been sociological. A review and synthesis of common themes of development among traditional-age, college students suggests that a developmental perspective on the retention of youth in college may have more to offer than the dominant sociological paradigm. This article argues…

In this article, we suggest that just as there are barriers and challenges that are particular to Chicanas/Latinas in terms of student retention and persistence, so must the mentoring offered to these students take into account their particular social, cultural, and gendered contexts. In response, we argue for a model of "mujerista"…

A strong body of research has documented the supportive environments of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and their impact on facilitating student success. Notwithstanding the consistency of these findings, recent reports and empirical research have highlighted the problems that HBCUs are experiencing with Black male enrollment,…

The purpose of this article is to trace the development of the Tinto framework for student integration and to critically analyze the application of the framework with nontraditional student populations. Specifically, the terms "academic" and "social integration" have become synonymous with student retention and, by extension,…

Although only contributing approximately 12% to the United States population, Black Americans account for the majority (51%) of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses in this country. Black women in college between the ages of 18 and 24 fall directly in the center of these alarming statistics. These young women are faced with the psychosocial manifestations of…

One of the most urgent issues facing institutions of higher learning in the United States today is the problem of college student retention. The purpose of this article is to provide a theoretically and empirically supported argument for stating that there is one potent force for retention of college students that has been as yet largely unmined:…

Early alert systems offer institutions systematic approaches to identifying and intervening with students exhibiting at-risk behaviors. Many of these systems rely on a common format for student referral to central receiving point. Systems at larger institutions often use web-based technology to allow for a scalable (available campus wide) approach…