Introduction
Retention is a continuous, widespread concern of colleges and universities worldwide. A high rate of attrition can hurt an institution’s bottom line. The growth, sustenance, and ultimate survival of these institutions are determined by having a higher number of new enrollees and persisting students over the number of dropouts and stopouts. Exactly how to maintain that sustainable ratio continues to baffle academics and administrators alike. While there have been many suggested approaches, Tinto’s theory is perhaps most commonly referred to. Having its origins from Durkheim’s theory of suicide, Tinto’s Social Integration Theory proposed that a student’s persistence in a certain educational institution is determined by two main factors: academic integration and social integration. For faculty administrators, this suggests that their retention efforts place much of their focus on the two factors mentioned above.
Any long-term study of student retention—and attrition—would require many preceding steps to be taken. One of these consists of determining the students’ satisfaction with the institution. In their study of Tinto’s theory, Liu and Liu (2000) have shown satisfaction to be a major determinant of student persistence. It may be considered an integral part of any retention campaign to measure satisfaction.
This goes without saying that satisfaction is not the only factor that predicts retention, and since retention is the ultimate goal, other factors such as individual student competency, student-faculty relationships, and family/financial support also have to be looked into. For this study, attention is focused on the level of satisfaction among students.