The College Departure Process among the Academic Elite

Abstract

High attrition from a selective school is an especially unexpected institutional outcome: Students and schools invest significant resources to ensure a match. This study examines the departure process underlying students’ decisions to leave college, based on a case study of attrition at a major selective urban American university. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews designed to identify the qualitative aspects of attrition as a process that leads to students’ ultimate decisions to disenroll. The results suggest that intervention may most profitably lie in the communication and interaction networks established between students and university personnel. When working successfully, such networks can enable discussion that informs students’ decisions about whether to leave or to stay. The departure process discovered at this university may possess characteristics that can inform retention policy at other institutions of higher education in both urban and nonurban settings.