Vincent Tinto

Dropout from Higher Education: A Theoretical Synthesis of Recent Research

Despite the very extensive literature on dropout from higher education, much remains unknown about the nature of the dropout process. In large measure, the failure of past research to delineate more clearly the multiple characteristics of dropout can be traced to two major shortcomings; namely, inadequate attention given to questions of definition and to the development of theoretical models that seek to explain, not simply to describe, the processes that bring individuals to leave institutions of higher education.

Research and Practice of Student Retention: What Next?.

After reviewing the state of student retention research and practice, past and present, the author looks to the future and identifies three areas of research and practice that call for further exploration. These concern issues of institutional action, program implementation, and the continuing challenge of promoting the success of low-income students.

Limits of Theory and Practice in Student Attrition

The field of student attrition has grown tremendously over the past two decades. The demographic characteristics of the population have induced us to consider how our institutions can more effectively serve their students and hopefully retain more of them until degree completion. As a result, studies of dropout and policy-oriented workshops concerned with prevention of attrition have become commonplace. But as researchers and planners rush into the fray armed with increasingly more sophisticated tools for the study and treatment of student attrition, we should pause to consider the limits on our ability to understand and treat it. We should give thought to just how far and in what directions we should stretch our existing models of dropout. Despite recent progress, there remain a number of important areas of inquiry that have yet to be adequately explored in our attempts to understand the complex character of student disengagement. So too in the realm of action, it would be wise for us to examine the forces that constrain the development and implementation of policies designed to improve retention. We must ask how far we should go in seeking to reduce attrition. The question must be posed as to the types of policies that should be implemented to reduce dropout among given types of students in the general student population. There are a variety of dropout behaviors in higher education, not all of which equally merit our attention.

Taking Retention Seriously: Rethinking the First Year of College

Efforts on most campuses do not go far enough to promote student retention, especially for first-year students. Add-on classes that are disconnected from one another cannot give students the cohesive environment they need to connect with faculty, staff, and other students. What are needed are learning environments, such as learning communities, that actively involve students, faculty members, and staff in shared learning activities.

From Theory to Action: Exploring the Institutional Conditions for Student Retention

Though access to higher education in the United States has increased over the past several decades, similar increases in college completion have not followed suit. Despite years of effort, we have, in large measure, been unable to translate the promise increased access affords to students, in particular those of low-income and underserved backgrounds, into the reality of college completion especially as measured by 4-year degrees. That this is the case is reflective in part of our inability to translate what we have learned from research on student retention into a reasonable set of guidelines for the types of actions and policies institution must put into place to increase rates of college completion.

College Proximity and Rates of College Attendance

This paper presents the results of a study on the effect of college proximity upon rates of college attendance among over 20,000 high school graduates of 1966 in the states of Illinois and North Carolina. Results of multivariate dummy-variable regression analyses question both the assumption that college proximity per se is an important factor in college-going, and the often stated belief that the establishment of public junior colleges will help to equalize educational opportunity by providing higher educational access to able children of low status families. In both Illinois and North Carolina, only persons of lower ability appeared to gain in attendance when living in a community with a public junior college.

College Origins and Patterns of Status Attainment Schooling Among Professional Andbusiness-Managerial Occupations

A longitudinal study of the occupational attainments of a national sample of male college graduates suggests, contrary to prevailing thought, that college origins do have a direct impact upon status attainment. They do so, however, only among professional occupations, rather than among business-managerial ones. Institutional sponsorship, should it occur, is more properly viewed as a latent rather than active capacity of collegiate institutions, one which is occupational situs-specific in character, rather than occupation-general. Nor does it appear to apply equally well to all members of the institution. Simply being at a prestigious institution is no guarantee of sponsorship to elite occupational positions. Individuals must demonstrate competence in order to activate the sponsorship capacities inherent in institutions.

Universities as Learning Organizations

One of the most important steps colleges and universities can take in becoming learning organizations is to reorganize their educational activities to encourage shared, connected learning experiences.

Through the Eyes of Students

For years, our prevailing view of student retention has been shaped by theories that view student retention through the lens of institutional action and ask what institutions can do to retain their students. Students, however, do not seek to be retained. They seek to persist. The two perspectives, though necessarily related, are not the same. Their interests are different. While the institution’s interest is to increase the proportion of their students who graduate from the institution, the student’s interest is to complete a degree often without regard to the institution in which it is earned. Although there has been much written from the former point of view, much less has been written from the latter. This article seeks to address this imbalance by laying out a conceptual model of student institutional persistence as seen through the eyes of students. Having done so, the article asks what such a model implies about institutional action to promote student persistence.

Higher Education and Occupational Attainment in Segmented Labor Markets: Recent Evidence from the United States.

Recent research on education and occupational attainment has opened up new areas for study. Employing the bilateral or segmented theory of labor markets, this research has begun to reveal both the complexity and variability of schoolings impact upon the diverse work careers of differing groups in society. Specific attention is paid to recent studies of the effect of educational origins upon the work careers of individuals in professional and business—managerial occupations in the United States. Among professional occupations not only do college origins matter but their impact is greater among graduates of low social status backgrounds than among those of high status origins. Implications for our understanding of the role of higher education in social stratification is explored with specific reference to current theories of educational sponsorship.