Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-235) and index.

As enrollments have declined, the need for colleges to retain the students they admit has become a critical concern for higher education. For an increasing number of institutions, especially those that admit virtually everyone that applies, this is an issue crucial to survival. In Leaving College, Vincent Tinto offers a unique synthesis that brings together and expands upon what is known about student departure and what actions institutions should take to reduce it. Tinto combines a wide-ranging review of recent research on student leaving with the theoretical work of Emile Durkheim and Arnold van Gennep to develop a theory of departure that explains the complex process of events leading individuals to withdraw from college. Rather than approaching departure as a "failure" on the student's part, Tinto argues that leaving college is like leaving any human community and necessarily reflects the actions and attitudes of the community as much as those of the student leaving. The quality of faculty-student interaction and the student's integration into the institution's social and intellectual life are central factors in student attrition. These and other principles of retention in Tinto's model form the basis of his discussion of institutional policy, which focuses on the pragmatic questions of what institutions can do to improve student retention. He describes the essential features of retention programs, including the timing of institutional actions and the variations in policy necessary for different types of students and for different types of institutions. Ultimately, however, the secret of effective retention lies not in the types of programs institutions construct for their students, Tinto argues, but in the underlying commitment to students that inspires their construction. His argument that institutions must place the goal of retention second to that of student education provides a welcome corrective to institutional policies that look only at the ledger sheet. The accessibility and timeliness of Leaving College will make it of great interest not only to those who study education but also to those who make important decisions about students and educational policy generally. -- Book Jacket.

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