Student departure is a long-standing problem to colleges and universities. Approximately 45 percent of students enrolled in two-year colleges depart during their first year, and approximately one out of four students departs from a four-year college or university. The authors advance a serious revision of Tinto's popular interactionalist theory to account for student departure, and they postulate a theory of student departure in commuter colleges and universities. This volume delves into the literature to describe exemplary campus-based programs designed to reduce student departure. It emphasizes the importance of addressing student departure through a multidisciplinary approach, engaging the whole campus. It proposes new models for nonresidential students and students from diverse backgrounds, and suggests directions for further research. Academic and student affairs administrators seeking research-based approaches to understanding and reducing student departure will profit from reading this volume. Scholars of the college student experience will also find it valuable in defining new thrusts in research on the student departure process. In addition to an introductory and a concluding chapter, the structure of this volume consists of two parts: theoretical frameworks and implications for policy and practice. The three chapters comprising the theoretical frameworks concentrate on enhancing our understanding of the college student departure process. Specifically, the first of these three chapters, "Tinto's Interactionalist Theory," describes this theory and assesses its empirical validity. The next chapter formulates a revision of Tinto's theory to account for student departure from residential colleges and universities, and the third chapter of this set formulates a theory of student departure from commuter colleges and universities. The second part, containing implications for policy and practice, consists of two chapters focusing on the reduction of institution rates of student departure. One of these two chapters, "Exemplary Student Retention Programs," describes institutional programs designed to reduce student attrition. The other chapter, "Reducing Institutional Rates of Departure," offers recommendations that assume the form of powerful levers for institutional acts directed toward reducing institutional rates of unnecessary student departure. The last chapter of this volume, "Conclusions and Recommendations for Scholarship," advances six conclusions derived from the literature and research findings reviewed and theoretical formulations offered in this volume. This chapter also advances four general and eight specific recommendations for further scholarship on the student departure puzzle. (Contains 6 figures and 1 table.)