other words, attrition evidences a form of maladjustment to the college experience while retention reflects adjustment. Tinto's model states that the factors affecting students' adjustment can be psychological, social, economic, or institution-specific. Thus, Tinto's model allows for both internal and external causes as contributors to student attrition and retention. Being more comprehensive in scope than models which preceded it, Tinto's model is selected to serve as the theoretical foundation of the research undertaken in this study.
That college does demand adjustment is perhaps best seen in the situations faced by students who, are in some sense, minorities; e.g. older students find themselves in a world in which events and activities are entirely oriented toward the young, moreover, their "peers" are consistently people several to many years younger than themselves. In some cases, "peers" may be younger than the older students own children.
Nor do students need to be actual minorities to experience adjustment difficulties. For example, Pascarella and Terenzini (1983) have noted that the experience of college can be different for men and women, a difference which can lead to very different reasons for attrition. Specifically, the authors state that females tend to leave college more as a result of social pressures while males tend to leave more as a result of academic pressures.
Social Impact of College Retention Programs
In order to understand the social impact of effective college and university retention programs, it is first necessary to understand that attrition is highest among low-income groups, and that these groups tend to be, in large part, comprised of ethnic minorities. According to Cloud (1988), the rate of attrition among "people of color" is large and increasing; this attrition rate is resulting in an achievement gap between whites and minorities which, if it persists will elevate already high ...