Since Summerskill's study on college attrition forty years ago, the interest in this topic has never waned. This study was particularly interested in the relationship of race to retention. Various theoretical frames of references have been proposed: Price's organization theory, Durkheim's Suicide, and Marx's Alienation have been used to guide empirical studies. These theories have developed into the concepts of student equilibrium and student change. Critiques of these approaches are provided. It is proposed that Alienation, one of the aspects of student change, is an important theoretical reference to use in exploring first-year retention. Factors affecting retention were examined by using both binary and multinomial logistic regression to analyze the heterogeneous student population who did not return their second year. Findings suggest that race is related to retention but not in the anticipated way. Also, support was found for including a measure for Alienation to explain retention, as it was one of the most significant variables in the models. A bibliography is included. (Contains 5 footnotes and 2 tables.)