Survey of Best Practices in Student Retention, 2022

The study presents data from 30 colleges and universities in the USA about their recent retention experiences, with data spanning 2018 through Fall 2021. Survey participants discuss how their pandemic experience impacted key retention-oriented student services such as financial aid, academic advising, tutoring, childcare, career services and assessment and how these services will be re-shaped, or not, going forward. Survey participants give key retention rate data for graduate students, adult students, undergraduate students, low income students, STEM students and other demographics and categories. The report also looks at spending on retention oriented consulting services, both current and expected, and looks particularly closely at college efforts, and satisfaction with such efforts, to retain students in lower income and other socially disadvantaged groups. In open ended questions, survey participants describe what they have done well, or not, in recent years and what their expectations are for the near future.