Studies of College Attrition: 1950-1975

Abstract

For every ten students who enter college in the United States, only four will graduate from that college four years later. One more will eventually graduate from the college at some point after those four years. Of the five students who dropped out of the college altogether, four will reenroll at a different college, and of those four reenrollees, only two will graduate. Of the six students who dropped out, three did so during the first year. Two more dropped out during the second year, and the last one dropped out at some point after the second year. Three of the ten students who originally entered college will never obtain a college degree. This means that of the estimated 7.6 million undergraduate students enrolled in the U.S. in 1971, roughly 2.3 million students will drop out of higher education completely (Eckland, 1964a; Iffert, 1957; Statistical Abstracts, 1974). In terms of sheer numbers, the attrition problem deserves the attention of those interested in and affiliated with institutions of higher education. From the institutional point of view, attrition has a heavy impact on institutional operations and finance. From the student's point of view, the effect of dropping out, although difficult to gauge, is also another important aspect of the attrition problem. The need to understand this phenomenon becomes more urgent every day. What is known about attrition? What are the results of the immense amount of research that is being conducted in this field? This article summarizes the past