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PRUDENCE AND
PERSISTENCE
STRATEGIES BOOST STUDENT RETENTION DESPITE PANDEMIC CHALLENGES BY AMANDA O’ROURKE During the summer after her first year at Susquehanna, Alaina Uricheck ’24 began to consider transferring to a different college. After being placed in quarantine a few times because of Covid-19 health and safety protocols, she decided to return to her home in New Freedom, Pennsylvania, to study remotely. What she felt was lacking was a strong connection drawing her back to campus. “My first experience on campus felt traumatizing with all the spontaneous quarantines,” Uricheck, a communications major with a minor in biology, admits now. “I just wasn’t sure it was something I wanted to return to.”
6 · Susquehanna Currents · fa l l/w i n ter 2021
Historically — including prior to the pains of Covid-19 — the retention of first-year students has been a struggle for most colleges and universities. According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s 2020 Persistence and Retention Report, the overall rate at which first-year college students persist, or continue to their second year, dropped 2 percentage points to 73.9% for fall 2019, its lowest level since 2012. Students leave for a variety of reasons. A 2006 report to the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative found that “of the 45% of students who start college and fail to complete their
