Retention Research

Research on the factors that influence students' decisions to continue their education in a certain environment is rising to the forefront of recruiting and admissions decisions as enrollment and financial aid staff attempt to balance net revenue and diversity goals with student welfare prerogatives. Hardwick-Day has a strong background in retention research and offers customized retention assessments to help colleges fine-tune enrollment and financial aid processes.

Retention for Smarties: Literature Review & Recommendations

Hardwick-Day research has shown that strong retention reflects a match between institutional intent and student interest and expectations, a coherent academic concept and delivery, and is essential to the organic development of an institution's educational success and reputation. More...

Case Study: It Takes More Than Just Sunshine

One of Hardwick-Day’s California clients has a mission of serving first-generation students and students of color. Hardwick-Day analyzed hundreds of variables and combinations of variables to find out if they were meeting their students’ needs—as indicated through retention. Many of the variables were interdependent and/or variations on one another, such as the timing of applications, admissions, and deposits. This is where multivariate analysis comes in handy—to tease out the subtleties. More...

Memo: Retention Statistics Deserve Nuanced Analysis

In January 2009, the Chronicle of Higher Education quoted a higher-education marketing consultant as saying, “We know statistically if a student can barely afford college as a freshman, they almost never come back as a sophomore.” This statement seemed reductionist to us, so we went back through some of our previous retention analyses to look at the relationship we found between financial aid and retention. More...