First-Year Persistence and Retention Report

Posted by National Student Clearinghouse Research Center on August 21, 2017

NSCRC Releases First-Year Persistence and Retention Report

Earlier this summer, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC) released its latest snapshot report on student persistence and retention. The group in focus is students who started college in fall 2015. Overall, 73.4 percent of students persisted somewhere in fall 2016, while 61.1 percent of students were retained where they started their first year. The report provides a number of valuable benchmarks against which members can compare their own outcomes.

As expected, students who enrolled full-time were more likely to persist or be retained than part-time enrollers. For the first time, the NSCRC was able to disaggregate non-degree-seeking students as their own category separate from full- and part-time enrollers. This resulted in a spike in the part-time retention rate, but it also represents an important disaggregation moving forward.

Beyond overall persistence and completion rates, the report also provides rates by race and ethnicity, age at college entry, and institution type.

Persistence & Retention – 2017