Improving student retention of future members of the science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and business workforce

This dissertation examined the relationship between various admissions selection criteria utilized by a small, Liberal Arts College in the Midwest. More specifically, the study examined if a higher college preparatory GPA, a higher aggregate score on the SAT, attending a larger high school, and beginning college at an older age helped predict the retention of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and business students. Data was gathered using historical enrollment data of 803 students. A logistic regression analysis was utilized to examine the impact of the four variables on retention of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and business students.;College preparatory GPA, the aggregate SAT score, and age at the time of enrollment were all significant predictors of retention of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and business students. For every point increase in GPA, the odds were more than twice as much that the student would be retained. For every point increase in SAT, there was 0.3 percent increase in retention. For every year older that a student began college, he or she had an 81 percent increase in being retained. Attending a larger high school provided no predictive power for retention.