Mastering the Art of Student Retention

When it comes to enhancing student learning outcomes, creating a comprehensive academic plan is only one step. To have the most significant impact, university leaders must implement strategies to keep students engaged with their academic material and motivated to continue their educational journey over time. This is the core of any good student retention strategy.

Maximizing student retention can lead to higher overall academic success rates, a reduced dropout rate, increased reputation and competitiveness of the university, and a student body ready to succeed in their careers. Several factors influence student retention rates, and taking a proactive approach to student engagement and support can help you facilitate a more effective and nurturing academic environment.

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What is student retention?

Higher education institutions often measure student retention by comparing student return rates each year, accounting for graduates and new enrollments. Student retention is essential as an institutional performance indicator because it offers a measurable metric to refer to so that leaders can better understand why students leave before graduating [1].

Benefits of a student retention strategy

Creating a working student retention strategy comes with several benefits, including [1]:

• A clear success metric: Student retention is an excellent indicator of how students perform and can reflect an institution's reputation or likelihood to be a student's choice for education.

• Cost savings: Higher education institutions lose millions of dollars each year due to student retention issues. Some source suggest the impact of student retention could be higher than the impact of initial enrollment.

• Determining at-risk students: Tracking student retention can identify root causes or common reasons. With these areas highlighted, leaders can focus on practical solutions.

Influences on student retention

Students may choose not to continue their education for a variety of reasons. According to a Gallup poll, common influences include financial factors, work conflicts, time required to complete their educational requirements, emotional stress, and a lack of remote options or flexibility. [2]

Time constraints

Students who fall behind in their learning plan may feel discouraged. Ensuring the curriculum and courses are the right length and depth may retain students more effectively because the topics are focused and the workload feels manageable. Courses could include shorter lecture notes, texts, audio content, and videos. Students should also feel a sense of progress throughout their education. Progress updates can include assessments, milestones, challenges within the learning material, or ways the student can feel they are making measurable progress throughout their courses.

Learning support

Students must feel psychologically safe. This means they must feel comfortable asking questions, trying out new subjects, and expressing their thoughts on their learning. As an institution, creating a space that appreciates different perspectives and stays open to new ideas can support students in this way.

Feelings of community

Collaboration and social support can increase student retention rates and help mitigate emotional stress factors. Even in online courses, the sense of community can create a more engaging experience by helping students discuss their learning with others and expand their understanding of the material.

Flexibility

Students often cite a lack of remote options or flexible courses as a reason for dropping out of secondary education programs [1]. In a world where students are increasingly juggling work and personal responsibilities, especially for non-traditional students, having flexible online learning options is essential.

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Learning strategies to retain students

To boost student retention in your learning initiatives, you can take a few steps to facilitate better engagement and increase motivation. Consider the following strategies to improve the long-term success of your programs. 

Make your curriculum relevant to job roles

Ensure the curriculum you provide directly applies to job applications and the career goals of your student population. When working with students, you should consider offering more examples of real-world applications that prepare them for what they'll encounter outside of the classroom. Designing a curriculum that shows how the material will directly apply in professional contexts can enhance willingness to learn.

Introduce gamification

Turn learning into a game by incorporating healthy competition among students. You can use elements such as points, leaderboards, and badges to make this educational process fun. Gamification can motivate students to progress through the curriculum and increase their engagement.

Break up material

Break down course content into smaller, more manageable segments, such as short videos or brief modules. These modules may include microlearning, which uses three- to five-minute segments to introduce students to critical points and high-impact ideas.

Build in personalizations and support

Customize learning experiences to meet the individual needs of your students and provide a sense of connection between the student and the material. You can do this in several ways, such as offering options to tailor content to different academic interests, learning speeds, and preferred learning styles. You can also introduce artificial intelligence or virtual reality tools to further specialize the learning experience.

Personalization gives students a greater sense of ownership over their education and allows them to see the material's relevance to their personal growth and academic goals.

Provide incentives

Introduce various types of incentives for completing educational modules. You can customize the incentives you offer based on your student base and available resources. For example, you might offer scholarships, access to exclusive events, or other academic benefits for continual learning. For non-monetary incentives, you can recognize students in different ways, including flexible scheduling around courses or public recognition within their academic community.

Incorporate social learning

Incorporate elements of social learning by encouraging collaboration and communication among students. You can facilitate this through discussion forums, group projects, or scheduled time for reflection and perspective sharing. 

Other student retention strategies to consider

In addition to assessing a learning strategy to address student retention, institutional leaders should also consider taking the following steps to analyze other factors influencing student retention:

Data analysis: Collect and analyze university data on student retention. This could include hard data like retention rates by school or focus area, as well as supplemental data like interviews with students who are leaving to gather more insights into their decisions and any common factors.

Student support: Ensure students, especially those who may be struggling academically or to balance their work, school, and personal priorities, have access to support channels in the campus community.

Financial aid factors: Cost factors like financial aid can positively affect student retention rates. Some cost-effective strategies for improving student retention through financial aid could include simplifying the application process for financial aid and making sure students have all the information they need regarding deadlines and academic expectations.

Partner with the right learning organization

One way to make learning flexible and accessible for students is to partner with a learning organization that can work out the finer details of platform setup and course structure.

Choose a learning provider that understands the unique needs of your student population and offers courses designed for students and rooted in career success. This includes providing learning paths that support career goals for students and course content that is high-quality and relevant, with various customizable options.

Build your learning plan with Coursera

Coursera for Campus empowers any university to offer job-relevant, credit-ready* online education to students, faculty, and staff. With Coursera for Campus, you can promote student employability by teaching in-demand skills for high-growth fields and help students master job-ready skills with Guided Projects, programming assignments, and in-course assessments—online, offline, and via mobile. Enable faculty to create projects, assessments, and courses tailored to learner needs with Coursera for Campus.

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