This spring saw the retention of more than one thousand members of the freshman class. This retention was the largest in Longwood’s history. Over the years there has been an incremental increase according to Dr. Jennifer Kingsley Green, associate vice president for Enrollment Management and Student Success.
“[The retention rate] has [increased]; we went from 79 percent to 81 percent and preliminarily—we’re just waiting on our last beta file to be locked but [we are at] 82 percent for this most recent school year.”
Retention, according to Green, is a national number that is used for tracking the population of students that come in the fall semester and whether they come back for the following fall semester.
The university has kept the 2020 plan into consideration when thinking about retention. With this plan, Longwood plans to grow to have a population of around six thousand students by the year 2020, according to Johnice Brown, the director of Undergraduate Recruitment.
“Yes, [the university] certainly has [the 2020 plan] in mind, in maintaining our enrollment numbers and not only entering freshman but the graduate numbers in that as well. … That does present overall numbers of what we would like to see here in terms of number of students enrolled.”
“We are still looking at the 2020 plan,” said Green. “Retention of students all the way through will be a component in getting us to that six thousand but there are other components; for example, growing some of our off site programs, and then also looking at our graduate student population. So that six thousand number is not just six thousand undergraduates. So retention will be a component of it, it just won’t be all of it.”
According to Brown, the office of Undergraduate Recruitment gets their directives [for student enrollment] from the Admissions and Enrollment office in terms of what they would like to see “in terms of the number of enrolled freshmen students.” This past fall semester, Longwood welcomed 1,100 students. This spring semester saw retention of 82 percent or retention of 1,342 students of that incoming class.
According to Justin Pope, the chief of staff for President Reveley, a large portion of attention goes toward the First Semester Experience to make sure that students who enter in the fall continue throughout the spring and following years.
“There is traditionally a moderate amount of what we call attrition in the number of students who enter in the freshmen class and then depart,” said Pope, “and so we really focus a large part of our attention on retention, on the first semester experience and making sure that important juncture student cross successfully.”
In terms of goals for retention, Brown states that the University’s ultimate goal is to have one hundred percent of the incoming freshman class continue on to the spring and following fall semesters.
“Just talking in general, we would like to retain all of our students from freshman to sophomore year and to have the entire freshman class we bring in graduate in four years. Ultimately the best percentage is one hundred percent but we would like to certainly increase what is our overall retention number. I don’t recall a specific number, but we certainly want to improve it. It’s not as if there’s a number we’d like to get to and then we’d stop. The best is one hundred percent [retention] and that’s what we’re working toward.”
Over the years, there has been a steady increase in the retention rate, increasing around a percent a year. But while Longwood has had over 1,000 students enter in the fall, this is the first time over 1,000 students have been retained for the spring semester.
In terms of retention outside of the freshmen class, those numbers are compiled internally according to Green.
“Now, and that’s just a national number and that’s where the 82 came from, internally we can track from that group how many came back in the spring and tracking how many came back for their second fall, how many came back for their third fall, fourth fall, etc. So those numbers are typically done internally and not recorded at a national level. They’re not requested at a national level.”
Retention is also a financial benefit as Dr. Ken Copeland, vice president of Administration and Finance, stated,
“[Retention] does [effect financials]. It’s not easy to quantify the impact on the financial position until you have the chance to look back and look at the numbers. Now I’m a business person, the idea is that there is a benefit if you look at it strictly at a business perspective, and there’s a lot more here at Longwood than that, but strictly at a business perspective it’s a lot more beneficial for any company to retain an existing customer than it is for them to try to bring in a new one. As our admissions office works so diligently to work so hard to fill that freshman class that comes in every year, there’s effort, time and certainly financial resources exhausted to fill that freshman class. If we want our enrollment ultimately to grow and to stabilize over a period time, the more of those incoming freshman that ultimately graduate, the better the financial benefit for the university.”
By expanding not only the number of students admitted but also the number of students retained by the university, the university does not have to expend the time, energy and financial expenses needed to bring in a larger freshman class to “pick up the difference for what [Longwood] has lost,” according to Copeland.
In terms of whether the current retention rate will increase or whether it will plateau, Brown had this to say.
“We are looking to improve our overall retention number. Again, if you bring in x number of students [in the] freshman class, ideally you would want to see one hundred percent of those kids graduate and be successful. But no, our current number is not a plateau.”
