Clearly, all students face the challenges of completing postsecondary education successfully, but research and anecdotal evidence show that the challenges are particularly great for certain groups of students. Several factors have been shown to affect student persistence. Among them:

• Socioeconomic status. Not surprisingly, retention rates differ among students of varying socioeconomic backgrounds. A study by Jacqueline King, director of the Center for Policy Analysis at the American Council on Education (ACE), found that 25 percent of middle and upper-income first-year students had left college without a degree by 1998, compared with 40 percent of low-income freshmen.
• Race and ethnicity. Multiple studies have shown that students of color persist and graduate at lower rates than whites and Asians, even though postsecondary enrollment rates for students of color are similar for all groups. The Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS), for example, found that only about half of the students of color (53 percent of African-Americans, 52 percent of Hispanics, and 50 percent of Native Americans) who first enrolled in a four-year college in 1996 had persisted at the same institution three years later, compared with 64 percent of whites and 71 percent of Asians. The trends over time, however, are positive for all groups.
• First-generation students. Researcher Susan P. Choy of MPR Associates finds that students from homes where neither parent had earned a bachelor’s degree are about twice as likely as those with a college-educated parent to leave before their second year (23 percent versus 10 percent). Similarly, Paul B. Thayer, an authority on retention at Colorado State University, has shown that such students are likely to enter college not as well prepared academically as their peers who have college-educated parents. They also have limited information about the college experience (including how to finance it) and are less likely to receive informal family support in coping with problems.
• Delayed enrollment. Students who enter higher education right out of high school are more likely to succeed than those who delay entry into college. NCES found that approximately 33 percent of students who delayed postsecondary enrollment left in three years without a credential, compared with about 14 percent of those who did not delay. There is, of course, considerable overlap among the various personal and institutional factors shown to be associated with persistence in college. Low-income students, for example, are much more likely to be first generation students, delay entering college, begin at two-rather than four-year institutions and go to public rather than private institutions. In fact, most experts in student persistence resist attempts to isolate any one factor as the “leading cause” of attrition among students.

NCES has identified the following seven “risk factors,” to a student’s ability to persist through graduation.

1. Delayed enrollment
2. Part-time enrollment
3. Being a single parent.
4. Having children under 18
5. Being financially independent of one's parents.
6. Working full time
7. Lacking a high school diploma.

The more of these factors that apply to a student, the less likely he or she is to attain a degree.

Three staff members at the University of Arizona — Dudley B. Woodard Jr., Sherry L. Mallory and Anne M. De Luca — have compiled an even more detailed list, identifying 40 factors that affect student success — some inherent to students, some to institutions, and some rooted in the academic practices and efforts that an institution employs.

For a list of these factors, see the Fall 2001 issue of NASPA Journal.