Student Engagement, Retention, and Motivation: Assessing Academic Success in Today’s College Students

Despite the attention given to student retention for nearly half a century, college graduation and persistence rates have not improved in over two decades. Furthermore, time to degree rates suggest that it is taking more time to earn degrees. Consequently, there is a significant amount of individual and financial expense required to earn a college degree. Higher education has the responsibility to the society it serves to make postsecondary education a successful experience for students. Is higher education measuring up to meet the learning needs of society? The purpose of this paper was to examine academic success of today's college students. It is important to know if students are graduating from college. Determining whether or not colleges and universities are meeting the learning needs is critical for higher education. This research study was an archival quantitative, data mining study using data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) of the National Center for Education Statistics. This study identified the graduation numbers during the years 2009 to 2014 according to available data at public, private, and for-profit 2-year and 4-year universities in the United States. Findings revealed that for-profit 2-year and 4-years institutions saw the greatest increase in institutions and students graduating from 2009 until 2014.