Retention and Attrition Among College Hispanic Freshmen at Border Institutions

Attrition rates for students of Hispanic descent at Border universities represent a long-standing dilemma. Significant social, economic, and educational effects from attrition inflict suffering, both subtle and direct, for the individual students, their families, their communities, and their institutions. In spite of many efforts to address the attrition problem, the current forecast predicts that only four of every ten entering university freshmen will eventually graduate (Cabrera, Nora & Castaneda, 1993). Obviously, the attrition problem remains as a major challenge for Border institutions with student majorities composed of “traditional minority” students. With the end of the baby boom, a rising concern among university administrators remains at the forefront on the decreasing enrollment of the traditional eighteen-year-old college freshmen. The Carnegie Commission on Higher Education’s prediction (Lenning, Beal & Sauer,1980) in the early 1980’s that the decrease in traditional freshmen enrollment would create a “new revolution” in academia is verified annually by initial matriculation data across the country and, particularly, on the Border. Attrition is so severe on the Border that the very survival of some institutions remains threatened. Just the “drain” of invested dollars is a critical consideration. After all, the education of continuing students is cheaper than the recruitment of brand new students. Regularly, universities direct considerable resources to recruit students: financial aid, promotion of academic reputation, student health services, student counseling services, student career selection and preparation services, campus facility usages, and other related costs (Kemerer, Baldridge, & Greene, 1982; Pascarella, Bohr, Nora & Terenzini, 1995). Such investments are made with the expectation that the student will continue until the degree has been attained. Each “dropout” represents a multileveled economic loss to the institution, in addition to the private loss in self-esteem, in economic opportunity, in social opportunity, and so on. Yet, in spite of many, many efforts to curb student attrition many with their own special acronyms and special funding sources attrition demands major concern (Thomas, 1994). Obviously, a high attrition rate can exert a considerable impact upon a higher educational institution. The school in terms of financial expenditures, faculty time, student support services, campus facility usage, and other costs derives commitments based on projected enrollments. Summerskill’s (1962) review of 35 studies of student attrition completed over a 40-year period figured the median loss rate of students during a four-year Journal of Border Educational Research Volume 5 l Fall 2006 1 period to be 50%. Scully (1980) noted, perhaps rather unsurprisingly, that a high rate of attrition in conjunction with a tenuous new student enrollment can affect the educational quality of an institution, its financial future, and even its survival. Studies indicate that students departing from their initial school of enrollment in higher education contribute to attrition rates from 40% to 60%, depending on whether the students were followed through one, two, three, four, or five years. Green (1983) found that nearly 50% of all students entering four-year institutions never graduate from their original place of enrollment and that approximately 30% never graduate from any college. Lenning et al. (1980) observed that over the past 50 years, only 40% of those who graduated during a fouror five-year period did so from their initial school of entrance. In their 1980 national study examining retention rates at different schools, Beal and Noel projected gloomy trends, namely, that the average graduation rates after five years from entrance varied from 46% at four-year public institutions to 65% at four-year private, selective institutions and 77% at private, highly selective institutions. Rather surprisingly, in the face of such atrocious student attrition, and, in spite of the many efforts to combat it, universities hold few systematic published descriptions, explanations, and in-depth analyses, and interpretations of the results of those efforts. Even the attempt to obtain unpublished information from different campus officials on universities throughout this nation typically yields only vague, informal reports about program effectiveness (Pascarella, Edison, Nora, Hagedorn & Terenzini, 1996). And, of course, each institution’s particular effort/s is proclaimed successful and filed. But in the midst of the American university family, the market of free discussion, the competition among infinitude of ideas, and the bulwark of democracy, the question of attrition still hovers. Another aspect of retention is attrition or those students who leave the university before graduation. The impacts of attrition most observed on a university are that the university loses potential graduates to the extent that the attrition certainly could adversely affect an institution’s reputation. The institution also loses because the time and effort spent on orientation, counseling, academic advising, financial counseling, and retention did not make a difference for that particular student. Furthermore, the university may develop a reputation for poor institutional effectiveness, for lack of credibility, and for a lack of concern as to how students can fit into the campus environment. The inability to retain ethnic minorities in higher education, at the state level, may be a sign of poor state planning and ignorance, or disregard of population trends. The result is the perpetuation of a lesseducated work force in society, as well as ethnicity-based differences in socioeconomic status. The student, on the other hand, loses time, effort, money, confidence, self-esteem, and motivation (Aguirre & Martinez, 1993). The student is also rated as a “dropout. ” The retention rates of students at Texas colleges and universities have become an increasing concern for educators. In light of tying legislative funding to retention rates and declining enrollments, each university component searches for data to justify its programs. The State of Texas Coordinating Board and the Texas Education Agency created a Task Force on Retention and Graduation. Its purpose was to develop information and policy recommendations concerning the improvement of retention and baccalaureate graduation Journal of Border Educational Research Volume 5 l Fall 2006 2 rates at Texas colleges and universities. In their April 15, 1998 report, the Task Force data revealed that of those students who entered Texas public colleges or universities for the first time in 1990, only 40% graduated with an associate degree, and 30% graduated with a baccalaureate degree. More than 40% were no longer enrolled and had not graduated. One of the Task Force recommendations was continued research to “strengthen statewide analysis of factors that influence the retention and graduation rates of Texas public college and university students. ” (Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, 1998). The major problem of this study was freshman attrition and retention at United States border institutions of higher learning where the Hispanic population was the majority. Specific concerns were factors that contributed to student attrition and retention at an institution of higher learning where a minority population was the majority population.