Abstract
Student retention is a wide-reaching issue that causes a concern to postsecondary institutions and policy-makers. This research aimed to examine the impact of a geo-spatial factor—distance to the closest metropolitan area—on student retention from a multi-institutional perspective, through the data collected from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (2017) of the U.S. Department of Education. Using the K-means clustering technique, 329 geographically dispersed higher education institutions with similar characteristics were identified. A spatial lag model was adopted to account for spatial autocorrelation detected within the dataset. A series of hierarchical regression was then conducted to measure how well the spatial variable explained student retention rate after accounting for institutional level attributes. The student retention rate was found to decrease as a university is located away from the closest metropolitan area. This finding has crucial policy and administrative implications if analyzed within the context of rural–urban discrepancies in higher education. Extending the spatial scope of retention analysis is an important step in accurately determining the set of factors that provides a better understanding of this complex problem.
Highlights
This research uses exploratory research design, where a range of data, including institutional characteristics, enrollments, admissions, test scores, and completion, were utilized for analysis through The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). This data system was established as the core postsecondary education data collection program for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the U.S The database is made of several files that contain directory information for all private and public institutions in the 2017 IPEDS universe
The critical distance was identified as 260 miles which ensured that each university had at least one neighbor
This research aimed to enhance the understanding of student retention from a multi-institutional perspective with a focus on the geo-spatial perspective, a long-time neglected topic in the retention literature
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Student retention continues to be an intricate problem for higher education [1]. 40% of college students drop out before completing a four-year college program or earning a college degree [2]. Higher drop-out rates place significant financial burden on post-secondary institutions [3] and lead to lower graduation rates [1]; together these create further challenges in the states where performance-based funding initiatives are implemented. To cope with shifts in governmental funding and changes in the educational marketplace, student academic progress and retention must be continuously monitored and ensured by colleges
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