Attrition in an urban southeastern community college: A case study

Research indicates that 46-50% of all community college students drop out before they complete their educational goal or graduate. There is some debate about the causes of student attrition in community colleges. However, student attrition is an issue that community colleges need to address. In this case study, the researcher explored administrators', instructors', and former students' experiences with student attrition in an Urban Southeastern Community College. The central research question was: How did the Urban Southeastern Community College address issues of student attrition?; Five administrators, five instructors, and five former students were selected based on criterion sampling and on the maximal variation principle to explore their experiences with student attrition at the Urban Southeastern Community College. The data collection included multiple sources. Six themes emerged as a result of data analysis: (1) Why do students enroll? (2) What do students expect? (3) What do students experience? (4) Why do students leave? (5) How does the college address attrition? (6) What are suggestions for reducing attrition? Administrators and instructors perceived students' experiences in the college as mostly positive. Contrarily, former students reported that they had both positive and negative experiences in the college and that negative experiences overshadowed positive ones. They also confirmed that their perceptions of these experiences influenced their departure decisions. Former students' prior schooling, number of years spent out of school before matriculating into the College, and socio-economic status impacted their educational goals and willingness to commit to their goals and to the institution. Administrators and instructors identified the same endeavors for addressing and reducing student attrition. Conversely, former students reported being unaware of how the college addressed student attrition, as well as being unaware of initiatives to reduce attrition. External commitment was found to the most influential in student departure decisions. Findings were also compared to two prevalent student attrition models: Tinto's Longitudinal Model of Student Attrition and Bean and Metzner's Conceptual Model of Nontraditional Student Attrition to ascertain their applicability to this case.