by Javier Ramirez
The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center recently released a report that examined first-year persistence and retention rates for all beginning postsecondary students. As defined by the research center, persistence rates are the percentage of students who return to college at any institution for their second year while retention rates represent the percentage of students who return for their second year at the same institution.
- The overall persistence rate declined 2 percentage points to 73.9% for Fall 2019 beginning college students, the lowest persistence rate since 2012.
- Persistence rates at public four-year institutions declined 0.6 percentage points to 84.1%.
- Despite a slight increase in their persistence rate in 2018, public two-year institutions declined 3.5 percentage points to 58.5%.
- Persistence rates at private nonprofit four-year institutions decreased 2 percentage points to 85.2%.
- The persistence rate at private for-profit four-year institutions decreased 0.9 percentage points to 44.8%.
- The overall retention rate declined 0.7 percentage points to 66.2% for Fall 2019 beginning college students, the lowest retention rate since 2014’s report.
- Public four-year institutions have the highest retention rate of all institutional types, having increased 0.7 percentage points to 76.3%.
- Public two-year institutions had the largest decline in retention, having decreased 2.1 percentage points to 51.6%.
- The retention rate at private nonprofit four-year institutions decreased 1.3 percentage points to 75.9%.
- The retention rate at private for-profit four-year institutions increased 0.2 percentage points to 40.3%.
- Persistence rates varied across racial and ethnic groups, with Asian students having the highest rate (86.5%) and Black students having the lowest (64.9%).
- White students’ persistence rates were 79.3% and Latinx students were 68.6%.
- Retention rates also varied across racial and ethnic groups with Asian students having the highest retention rate (79.5%) followed by White students (69.6%), Latinx students (62.0%), and Black students (56.1%).
- Persistence and retention rates varied by age of student.
- Students ages 20 or younger had the highest persistence and retention rates at 78.5% and 70%, respectively.
- Students ages 21-24 had the next highest persistence and retention rates at 46.8% and 43.1%, respectively.
- Students ages 25 or older had the lowest persistence and retention rates at 44.5% and 42.2%, respectively.
