Retention

See them through to graduation day.

Growing public policy emphasis on student success and persistence has fortunately arrived alongside a growing wealth of research data on student retention best practices.  Academica's consulting team includes specialists with extensive experience focusing on the challenge of retaining at-risk students and underrepresented populations, and can help you develop infrastructure, organizational structure and processes for early warning and intervention systems, first year student experience programs, core curriculum, and student services to support retention.

Retention audits, and full-blown retention strategic planning, involves a comprehensive review of the structures, activities, systems, information, policies, and processes associated with student transitions into, through, and out of your institution. Our data-driven approach leads to an integrated and actionable strategy and plan that:

• Defines the desired attributes of the student experience and conditions for student success that all students should have access to at an institution, encompassing learning, campus life and services
• Identifies retention strategies and communications messages that convey the commitment the institution is making to students throughout their lifecycle
• Identifies high impact strategies based upon their potential return on investment (ROI)

Our consulting process is designed to produce sustainable retention efforts and more importantly, to foster a retention culture on campus. An integrated retention plan that is directed by institutional goals, focused on target populations, aligned with the institution’s promise, and in sync with organizational capacity will yield significant student success and retention outcomes.