The ubiquitous roadblocks to university graduation have been investigated, identified, and interrogated for 7 decades, yet the mystery of retaining students to graduation continues to elude even the most prestigious universities. This researcher’s approach to increasing graduation began with the concession that increasingly, students may leave school at some point due to one or more of the retention issues that we recognize all too well—finances, illness, family problems, pregnancies, and other educational obstacles. However, leaving school does not mean that there is no going back. Student’s dropout status changes when they re-enroll in school; they take on new identities as stop-out students who forge their own nontraditional path to graduation. This work explored the lived experiences of this often-overlooked subset of university students—students who begin courses in higher education but then forgo their studies for a time before returning. These students are known in the literature as stop-out students, a cohort seldom acknowledged, studied, or desegregated from dropout statistics. An online survey was used to determine the demographics of the stop-out participants, and face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were then conducted to allow students to relate their experiences, in and out of school, in their own voices. Of particular interest was the effect of students’ perceived connections to faculty, staff, and/or administration as an influence in their decisions to return to school. The study was analyzed through the lens of care theory as a way to investigate how students’ persistence was affected by feelings of connection or caring. Only one of twelve interviewees had formed a relationship with a professor before he left school, and this relationship was maintained during his absence and renewed when he returned. The other interviewees acknowledged that they felt no specific connections to any person, office, or administration when they left. The stop-out population is one that higher education needs to acknowledge and support with targeted services. In many cases, they are only a few semesters from graduation. Rather than blocking their way when they run for the hills, we should be lighting their path back to success.

Half of the students who begin college do not complete a degree or certificate. The odds of completing a degree are decreased if a student has a low socio-economic status (SES), is the first in a family to attend college (first-generation), attends multiple institutions, stops out multiple times, reduces credit loads over time, performs poorly in major-specific coursework, has competing family obligations, and experiences financial difficulties. Stopping out of college does not always indicate that a student is no longer interested in pursuing an education; it can be an indication of a barrier or several barriers faced. Institutions can benefit themselves and students by utilizing person-centered statistical methods to re-engage students they have lost, particularly those near the end of their degree plan. Using demographic, academic, and financial variables, this study applied latent class analysis (LCA) to explore subgroups of seniors who have stopped out of a public four-year Tier One research intuition before graduating with a four-year degree. The findings indicated a six-class model was the best fitting model. Similar to previous research, academic and financial variables were key determinants of the latent classes. This paper demonstrates how the results of an LCA can assist institutions in the decisions around intervention strategies and resource allocations.

The purpose of this study was to determine the motivations and characteristics of returning female students ages 23-50 and to investigate the implications for the community college. Participants in the study were 30 female students ages 23-50, selected from required classes in math and English in a community college in Northeast Tennessee. The participants volunteered to participate in this study. Responses were grouped in three major categories: motivation, characteristics, and implications for the community college. The responses were then analyzed and compared with the information from the literature review. Findings suggested that job-related reasons motivated students to return to college, and these reasons were those that were most acceptable to family and peers. Self-improvement, however, was also a strong motivation. Job satisfaction seemed more important than high salaries. Many single parents wanted more for their children and further education was the only way they could get a better-paying job. These students were highly motivated, determined to reach their goals. Almost all of them had experienced some academic successes in their past, but most of them had families who were indifferent to higher education, and often, in the same family, attitudes toward the student’s attempt to obtain more education were ambivalent. Students did not express many problems in the areas of scheduling, transportation, or child care, even though the community college could be classified as a "commuter college." Their attitudes were positive toward the school, and toward their educational experiences. Most of them were enrolled in a business or medical curriculum. Students viewed general education courses positively. They saw such courses as expanding their outlook on life and opening up new worlds for them. All of the students said they would recommend returning to school to other women in their age group.

The student retention behavior of stopping-out is widely misunderstood and yet very important in explaining community college student enrollment patterns. Stopping-out remains understudied in higher education literature as it is challenging to collect data from students who discontinued their enrollment. Since these students are not retained, they may be categorized as dropping-out within institutional data. The behavior of students who temporarily discontinue their enrollment and intend to re-enroll in the future is characterized as stopping-out. A clear distinction between stopping-out and dropping-out is vital to understanding the characteristics of students who stop-out and the student-level, institutional, and economic factors that influence their decision to discontinue their enrollment. By identifying the characteristics of these students and the factors that lead them to stopping-out, this study provides a foundation for shifting resources to programs that specifically target students who stop-out. Previous retention studies primarily utilized quantitative designs, lacking a student perspective. This mixed-method study, informed by rational choice and prospect theory, analyzed quantitative and qualitative data collected through a fall 2023 student survey administered in partnership with the community college research site. Quantitative analysis revealed that stop-out students at the community college are disproportionately Black, African-American, or Hispanic, of non-traditional age, and Pell Grant eligible. The students who stopped-out for economic reasons were most likely to be part-time enrolled and full-time employed and were more likely than students who stopped out due to institutional factors to discontinue enrollment due to COVID-19. The qualitative analysis of student responses to open-ended survey questions revealed the following themes, which described the factors influencing students' stop-out decisions. These were academic goal attainment, dual enrollment, institutional policies and academics, economic or life events, and ongoing student identity. The qualitative findings corroborated the quantitative findings that economic factors predominantly drive stopping-out decisions and stop-out students still identify as college students. The qualitative findings also confirmed that a number of students included in the stop-out survey did not stop-out. The students who reached their academic goals and dual enrollment students discontinued their enrollment because they met their academic goals. In order to analyze the students who stopped-out, these students were categorized as not-stopped-out for data analysis. The categorization allowed for the focus to be on students most closely aligned with the definition of stopped-out at the research site. My research contributes to the existing literature by including the experiences of stop-out students through their perspective. The research results provide a foundation for community college administrators and policymakers to advocate for reallocating resources toward programs supporting the retention of this unique group. Since the research revealed that many students who stop-out still self-identify as college students, there is an opportunity to provide a pathway to re-enrollment. College leaders can create an environment that lowers the economic barriers driving these students out of the classroom, thereby increasing the student success initiatives associated with community college missions. / Educational Administration