Student Retention at Ashland University: A Statistical Study

Ashland University has a retention problem similar to that of many other colleges and universities.This paper estimates a retention model for Ashland that uses not only the variables found in earlier works but also sociological factors that have not been used previously.It confirms the conventional wisdom for some variables but not for others.Students with higher secondary school grades are more likely to graduate from Ashland University, but ACT test scores have a very weak curvilinear relationship with retention.Variables such as economic status, parental education, and family structure have the expected positive results.In contrast, student work experience in high school has an unexpected but not statistically significant negative effect.