How Socioeconomic Status, Institutional Characteristics and Institutional Expenditures Correlate With Student Retention at Baccalaureate Degree Granting Colleges and Universities

Many colleges, in part due to increased state and federal scrutiny of student outcomes, are concerned with the consequences of failing to graduate students. Students who successfully complete their first year of college are more likely to persist to graduation, but little research has taken place that attempts to determine how a resource allocation strategy could provide insight into improving student retention. Framed by Hackman’s (1985) Resource Allocation Theory and Pascarella’s (1980) General Change Model, the purpose of this study was to identify specific institutional expenditure allocations in the categories of instruction, academic support, student services, and institutional support that correlated with first year student retention at 1571 Title IV funded four-year baccalaureate degree granting public and private colleges and universities, while controlling for institutional size, institutional control, and the percentage of students at the college classified as coming from a low socioeconomic status family