The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s report on retention and persistence rates for the fall 2019 freshman cohort shows a marked decrease in return enrollment and is a direct reflection of the pandemic-related struggles experienced by first-year higher education students during the onset of COVID-19.
Latinx students, part-time students, and community colleges were hardest hit.
Assessments were defined along two parameters: persistence and retention. Persistence measures those students who returned to any U.S. college or university for their second year. Retention is the measure of students who returned to the same institution where they began their studies. Overall persistence shrank by two percentage points to 73.9%, its lowest rate since 2012.
Two percentage points might not seem like a lot, but Dr. Mikyung Ryu, director of research publications at the National Student Clearinghouse said, “it’s a big deal.”
“There are about 2.5 million first-time freshman students enrolled in higher education institutions across the U.S.,” said Ryu. “Losing 2% of students in persistence means losing roughly 70,000 students in their second year of education.”
Students at four-year public institutions were more likely than in years past to stay enrolled at the institution they started with, a .7% increase in retention. This is possibly a “response to the greater immobility of pandemic life,” said Ryu.
Since 2011, an average of 9.2% of first-year students transfer to a different school. During COVID, that number was closer to 7%.
