First-time freshmen who are not retained in the first year: Educational paths after leaving CSUN
First-year retention is a key student success metric. In the two most recent first-time freshman cohorts, we have seen a sharp drop in first-year retention at CSUN (for more information about this, see our recent reports on the characteristics of students who are not retained and academic predictors of non-retention).
In order to better understand the educational paths of students who leave within their first year, we examined the outcomes of the 863 first-time freshmen in the Fall 2016 entry cohort who did not re-enroll for a second year (out of 4,470; 19% of the cohort). Data gathered by CSUN from the National Student Clearinghouse indicate that over 2/3 of these students did not enroll at any other college or university after leaving CSUN (591). Of the remaining students, most (249) enrolled at 2-year institution, with 23 enrolling at another 4-year institution.
When we take a closer look at these 863 students who did not re-enroll for a second year, just over a third had been academically disqualified (328; 38%). While those students had to leave CSUN because of their disqualification, the rest were nearly equally distributed among those who were in academic good standing when they were last enrolled (255; 30%) and those who were on academic notice (280; 32%).
Only 15% of these students ever re-enrolled at CSUN (131), with those who had been disqualified the least likely to re-enroll (7%) – and none of the previously disqualified students ever graduated. Among those who had been on academic notice, just under 1 in 5 (49; 18%) re-enrolled at CSUN, and only 4 graduated. When it comes to those who were in academic good standing when they were last
enrolled, about a quarter re-enrolled (59, 23%), but only 13 ever graduated.
It is clear from these data that freshmen who are not retained the first year:
- are most likely to leave higher education altogether,
- are very unlikely to re-enroll at CSUN, even if they left
in academic good standing, and - only rarely end up graduating.
This further underscores the critical nature of first-year
retention in our efforts to support students in successfully completing their degrees at CSUN.
Previous Reports:
- Report 1
- Report 2
- Report 3