Retention goals should be informed by your persistence data and your campus-assessment data, both quantitative and qualitative measures. Carefully examine all sources of survey data, as well as input from faculty, staff, students and administrators.

The priorities must have the support and commitment from all campus constituents—especially those involved in the development and delivery of retention strategies.

A. Institutional Goals
The best-retaining institutions focus on the effectiveness of campuswide retention programs and services such as advising, quality service and student tracking.

B. Recruitment Goals
The best-retaining institutions focus on recruiting students who have the greatest opportunities to be successful, based on past student performances.

C. Persistence Goals
The best-retaining institutions may choose to focus on improving the success rates of all students or of specific groups of students, such as those in specific majors, athletes, minorities or others.

D. Student-Outcomes Goals
The best-retaining institutions focus on improving the quantitative and qualitative outcomes of the educational experience, such as increasing the freshman GPA, successfully placing students in jobs related to their majors, and increasing the percentage of students getting into the graduate program of their choice.

E. Course Goals
The best-retaining institutions focus on improving their students’ opportunities for success in individual courses by monitoring the pass/fail rates for “killer” courses, making more tutors available to support specific courses, and increasing the GPA course-by-course.

F. Student-Satisfaction Goals
The best-retaining institutions focus on both expectations and levels of student satisfaction with a goal of reducing the size of the performance gap (the difference in student expectations and level of satisfaction) for the entire student body or specific groups of students.

For each of the retention goals selected, a retention-goal worksheet should be completed. A sample worksheet is provided to guide the development of goals for your campus.

Proceed to Step 3. Select Retention Strategies That Work