Retention/Persistence: The initial cohort may be adjusted for students who departed for the following reasons: death, permanent disability, service in the armed forces, foreign aid service of the federal government or official church missions. No other adjustments to the initial cohort should be made.
IPEDS Definition:
A measure of the rate at which students persist in their educational program at an institution, expressed as a percentage. For four-year institutions, this is the percentage of first-time bachelors (or equivalent) degree-seeking undergraduates from the previous fall who are again enrolled in the current fall. For all other institutions this is the percentage of first-time degree/certificate-seeking students from the previous fall who either re-enrolled or successfully completed their program by the current fall.
THECB Definition:
Persistance Rate (Retention Rate): The rate at which students persist in higher education, often as measured by the percentage of students who continue in higher education from one year to the succeeding year. To avoid confusion, this term is replacing the term "retention rate," which is used in the public sector as a reference to students who are held back and not promoted to the next grade.
TTU Definition:
The percent of an entering cohort (typically degree-seeking, full-time freshmen) who re-enroll at TTU in the succeeding fall term. Student retention cohorts may be defined in various ways, e.g., first-time full-time, first-time part-time, etc.; likewise, the retention rate may be calculated in different ways, e.g., from the freshman to sophomore year or from the first fall enrollment through graduation date.
