This report presents results of a study conducted to obtain information on student retention and attrition at Gainesville Junior College (GJC). After introductory material discusses the college's problems in the areas of recruitment and retention, section I presents findings from a study of 1,053 of the 1,689 students taking course work at GJC in…

An analysis is provided of student retention and attrition at Gainesville Junior College (GJC). Section I presents background information on the college's service area and the characteristics of its students. Section II presents results of a study of 1,590 of 1,762 students enrolled at GJC in fall 1983. This section examines: (1) retention rates…

Valencia (Florida) Community College's (VCC's) REACH Program offers high school students a 10-week college preparatory program, including 1-hour instructional units in communications, mathematics,and Afro-American history; 30-minute presentations by black professionals each week; and a personalized prescription for learning based on diagnostic…

Ten Texas community colleges participated in a fall, l976, college withdrawal survey, yielding a total of 1,102 responses. Students classified as "illegal/undefined" majors accounted for 32% of withdrawals, followed by "university transfer/academic" majors (27%), "undecided" (21%), and…

A review of research on student attrition suggests eight factors influencing students' decisions to remain in a course or in college that may respond to college, counselor, and teacher interventions. First, as low grades are consistently revealed as contributing to attrition, appropriate course placement, basic skills instruction, criterion-based…

The grading system at the University of North Carolina at Asheville before fall 1978 provided four designations: H (honors); G (good or well above average); P (pass or satisfactory); and F (failure). This range does not provide a grade for unsatisfactory but passing work. It was suspected that this led teachers to give "average" grades…

OF 196 COLLEGE FRESHMEN STUDIED IN 1960, 147 WERE INCLUDED IN A RESTUDY TO--(1) DETERMINE IF COMMITMENT TO THE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND OTHER STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS ARE RELATED TO CONTINUATION IN AGRICULTURE, CHANGES IN MAJOR, SCHOLASTIC RECORD, OR WITHDRAWAL FROM COLLEGE, (2) DETERMINE PRESENT STATUS OF 1960 FRESHMEN, AND (3) COMPARE STUDENTS…

Students who were enrolled at the Grand Valley State Colleges (GVSC) during fall 1977 but did not re-enroll winter 1978 were surveyed. The results showed that (1) 75 percent probably left for reasons the college could not expect to affect; (2) most complimented the college; (3) almost half had not expected to get a degree there to begin with; (4)…

A goal of increased effectiveness of teacher-student communication led to the development and validation of an 18-item scale, RAM, which classified subjects into categories of Relative, Absolute, and Mixed relative-absolute philosophical orientation to the nature of reality. After three pilot studies using a total of 202 subjects, RAM was…

Reviews the literature on student attrition and suggests ways to increase enrollment and re-enrollment at community colleges without establishing labor-intensive programs and services. Focuses on the creation of the necessary environment for retention; the importance of campus-based research; and ways of predicting and preventing unnecessary…

This study addresses the extreme shortage of registered nurses (RNs) in California and the changing demographics of those entering the occupation. It focuses on the issue that racially diverse RN students have shown a significantly lower completion rate than their white counterparts. Since community colleges provide 70% of the hospital-based RN…

A study was conducted at William Rainey Harper College (WRHC) to develop a profile of students who withdrew from courses between summer 1992 and spring 1994. Between 1992 and 1994, 13.7% of the 175,000 course enrollments resulted in official withdrawals, representing a 0.4% decrease in withdrawals from the 1990-1992 cohort. An analysis of these…

This study determined which of three types of educational barriers (institutional, situational, or dispositional) represented the major problem preventing adult students from completing their general educational development (GED) studies at Community College of Philadelphia (CCP) in Pennsylvania. A Likert-type survey instrument was used to collect…

This report examines how successful America's high schools have been in raising high school graduation rates over the past decade and how severe the high school dropout problem actually is. It reviews existing empirical evidence on the school dropout problems of America's youth during the 1990s. It also presents evidence to support the view that…

Reports results of a survey of 149 undergraduates (persisters - 73 White, 9 Black) and former undergraduates (nonpersisters - 35 White, 32 Black) indicating how their perceptions of their college environment affected the decision to remain at or leave the Speed Scientific School, University of Louisville. (SK)