COMMUNITY COLLEGE RETENTION: DIFFERENTIATING AMONG STOPOUTS,DROPOUTS, AND OPTOUTS |
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| Authors: | L Adrianne Bonham Jo Ann I Luckie |
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| Institution: | 1. Texas A&2. M University;3. Del Mar College |
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| Abstract: | One fact often overlooked in discussing the retention issue is that not everyone who fails to return to school is a dropout. Some persons return after an absence of a semester or more; they can be called stopouts. Some intended to take only a few classes and stop attending when they accomplish their educational goals; they can be called optouts. The only persons who should be labeled dropouts are those who failed to accomplish their educational goal and have no definite plans to accomplish it later. During the 1990‐91 school year, Del Mar College (DMC) and the Texas A&M Adult and Extension Education program developed and executed a plan to identify, count, and interview nonreturnees at DMC. The purposes of the study were toprovide DMC with baseline data on its nonreturnees and to test the feasibility of gathering interview information by telephone. Stopouts far outnumbered dropouts and optouts among respondents, with 303 of 399 nonreturnees identifying themselves as such. In this article, we define relevant terms, outline the data‐gathering process and describe the findings of the present study, and present recommendations regarding data gathering and the focus of retention efforts. |
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