When schools try to figure out what to do to increase
retention they often make primary errors. They approach attrition as if it were
a rational and logical
Students do not make a rational decision to stay or leave a
college or university. They do not sit down, take out a piece of paper and
weigh the pros and cons. They decide to leave almost as they chose to come to
the school –emotion. Think of how students think of going to a college and what
they say about it. They use phrases like “I want to go there”.” “I love this
school”. “I hate this place ”or “ I want to get the %*&# out of here”.
These are emotional statements that indicate student
reactions to college. Understanding their emotionality is key to understanding
how to keep more of them. Knowing what causes them to personally feel insults and shocks that drive them
out of school is necessary to increasing retention.
These go to the core of their personalizing everything they
encounter. They feel every action and interaction as personal even if it is as
impersonal as a rule or regulation they come up against. I can’t count the
number of times that I have heard students say “why are they doing this to me?”
even if the line they are in is filled with many others or the rule that is
stopping them from doing something is for everyone.
Keep in mind that the top reason why students leave a college or
university is they believe the school does not care about ME. “Does not care”. This is an
emotional response to the way they feel they are treated in school. Insult like
poor service add up and make them feel the “college does not care about me if
it can treat me this way” as one student said to me recently.
This should tell us that we need to find out what students
feel as insults from poor service for example that increase their negative
feelings about the school. What makes them feel the school does not care and
what does school do to make them feel this way. That is, what is it we do not
do right? What are our flaws are that make students believe we do not care. A
school that wants to increase retention needs to discover what it is that drives students
out the door.
One of those errors according to what we learn from students
is that schools do not show they care by making certain faculty provide the
extra tutoring and personal interaction that says “we care”. Yet most schools will
not tackle the faculty actually being in office hours for example. They may say
they are required but do not enforce the requirement. .We find during campus
customer service audits that many, too many faculty do not show up for office
hours or even discourage students from showing up for them. In one school we
did a service excellence audit for a faculty member was allowed to put up a
sign stating “if you want to see me in the office it had better be for a damn
good reason. Don’t waste my time. I am busy.” How does that say “I care” to
students? How would that make you feel as a student? That surely is an insult
to them isn’t it but no one made the faculty member take the sign down.
Another thing that schools do not do is make certain that
faculty get closer to students to find out
if they are actually learning the materials in class. We know they need extra
help but we do not make certain that it is provided. One of the things we teach in faculty academic
customer service workshops is that they should be the last person out the door
checking every student to make sure he or she understood the material. A simple
“did you understand it today? Should we
meet to get some extra help?” to a student who looked a bit confused on the way
out can show a great deal of caring.
It is often the personal touch that shows we care that can
positively affect the emotions of students. When Boston University contacted
every freshman by telephone just to see how they were doing, their freshman to
sophomore retention rate jumped up. When Hostos Community College (NY) started
a program for a cadre of at risk students by giving them a personal
coach/advisor who checked up on them every week and helped them work their way
through the financial aid maze, this cohort’s completion rates went way up. I
had Briarcliff College (NY), a school of 2,600 students, make
sure any student who missed a class was contacted that day. We also had the retention coaches contact each
student at least once a week by phone, email or in person. Retention went up
14%.
These were all steps that told students that the college
really cared. Equally important these outreach approaches showed that the
college was involved with them personally. In fact, at Briarcliff when we
polled students about the contacts from retention counselors they said that
when they were called or emailed or had a meeting with a counselor they knew
the college cared so they worked even harder to stay in school. One student who
was an at-risk student rode his bike twelve miles each way after his car died
because he believed the college wanted to help him graduate because he was
contacted every week to see how he was doing. When student are contacted by the
schools, another problem is overcome. The feeling that no one cares is
eradicated. Students’ emotional needs are met.
When students are contacted by the re5tention coaches, they
can find out if a student has a problem
or issue that could make him or her drop out. The counselors could ask if there
were any problems and if there were they could help the students fix them.
In addition to showing that the school cares we
work with colleges to find out what insults are created to make
students feel offended by the school. We discover every point at which students
are made to feel badly and find ways to turn these into points in which
students are made to feel the school cares. At one school we found that
students were irritated by people not answering the telephone so we taught
staff to answer in three rings as well as what to say when they answer. In
another school, students felt insulted by having to stand in long lines only to
find out that they did not have to stand there. We had that school change its approaches and use an
expediter to go through the lines and help get students out as quickly
as possible.
At many schools we find that students really resent what we
call the
shuffle they get when they are sent from one office to another trying
to get a problem addressed. At those schools one way we helped them end the
shuffle was by having them pull together FAQs from each office so all offices
knew what one another did and where to actually send students.
All of these and many other issues from poor signage and
websites that don’t work or are clunky and inaccurate to rude or indifferent
staff to lack of office hours and in-class performance or lack of it are among
the issues that tell students they are not important enough for the school to
care about them. So they leave and at some schools, they leave in numbers that
make budgets impossible to make and the mission statement a mocking poster on
the wall.
In many cases, what is needed is to show the students that
the college cares about them. In most situations it takes finding out what the
issues and problems make the school seem
not to care and act like insults to them.
It really is not hard to do either
and the results would be increased retention and completion rates which by the
way feed directly into completing the
mission of educating students for success as most mission statements announce.
And as a president wrote to me, “a 1% increase in retention would mean two
million more dollars in the budget and that is a worthy goal too.”
IF
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N.
Raisman & Associates is the leader in increasing student
retention, enrollment and revenue through workshops,
presentations, research, training and academic customer service
solutions for colleges, universities and career colleges in the
US, Canada, and Europe as well as businesses that work with them
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