Trying to figure out what is odd about AU

pswillia
Wed, 22 Jan 2020 21:34:11 +0000

Actually, they lose more than that. Check out Table 3-1 here: https://www.american.edu/provost/oira/upload/preliminary-fall-2019-academic-data-reference-book-5.pdf

Freshman retention for the 2018 entering class was 86.7%. That’s down from 89.8% for the 2015 and 2016 entering classes, and down from 87.9% for the 2017 entering class. It’s going the wrong direction.

That’s only part of the story because that’s just first year retention. Some sophomores don’t show up for their junior year, and some juniors don’t show up for their senior year. For the 2015 and 2016 entering classes, only about 73% were there when senior year rolled around (some graduated early, so the true 4-year retention rate is about 80%).

I read an article that said private colleges have an average retention rate of 80.4%. If that’s true, AU is right on the average.

And, @TimeFlies2 , I sent you a private message.