Report Shows Increases in Retention and Persistence

The rate of college freshmen returning for a second year is at a decade high.

A new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center noted that more than 76% of students who started college in the fall of 2022 returned for their second year. Done annually, the 2024 Persistence and Retention report shows the persistence rate (returning to college at any institution) rose 0.8 percentage points to 76.5% and the national retention rate (returning to the same institution) rose one full percentage point to 68.2%.

Dr. Doug Shapiro“Last year was the first year of kind of a rebound from the declines in the beginning of the pandemic,” said Dr. Doug Shapiro, executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. “This is now a continuation of that, and the progress looks pretty strong. Overall enrollments are still nowhere near back to what they were in 2019, but retention and persistence levels are.”

The largest gain in retention rates over the last decade was in community colleges — increasing 3.7 percentage points from 51.3% for incoming students who began fall 2013 to 55% for those who began fall 2022. Shapiro noted that community colleges saw the sharpest declines in enrollment and persistence at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among part-time students, and that is now rebounding. To continue to improve, Shapiro suggested colleges examine their rates — including examining data by age, race, and gender — and craft programming in response.

“It’s really important to find benchmarks that can help inform efforts to improve at individual colleges,” Shapiro said.

Dr. Amaris Matos, assistant vice president for equity, inclusion, and belonging at Queensborough Community College (QCC, part of City University of New York), said the data in the report align with what the college is seeing.

Dr. Amaris MatosThe report showed disparities between the national retention rate (68.2%) and the retention rates for Hispanic (63.6%), Black (56.6%), and Native American (52.8%) students.