Understanding First-Year Persistence at a Micropolitan University: Do Geographic Characteristics of Students' Home City Matter?.

This study analyzed data of two freshmen cohorts to examine the effect existence of students' home city geographic characteristics on first-year persistence at a micropolitan university. The geographic factors including proximity and urbanicity of students' home city were combined with the other factors of students' background characteristics, financial aid, and university academic outcomes in the model development of first-year persistence by using sequential logistic regression. This study shows that in addition to academic major certainty and academic performance demonstrated from high school through university, the proximity of home city to campus has significant positive relationship with first-year students' persistence. Urbanicity of home city does not seem to influence first-year persistence. Practical implications with regard to addressing the student retention at rural universities are discussed. Introduction Where you live and where you come from can be important influential factors in many life decisions and events (Tinto, 2004). This notion could also be true for college student persistence. Geographic characteristics can be a driving force when students are considering where to enroll in postsecondary education and also whether or not to persist in college. For many public universities located at small cities and rural areas, geographic restrictions remain a concern for administrators and faculty to improve their enrollment management. The influence of geographic factors on retention is a commonly discussed issue. In practice, it is often speculated that the geographic characteristics of students' home cities can influence students' persistence at a university located in rural area. Some enrollment and advising professionals tend to view that the isolated location of a rural university can be an objective obstacle for the improvement of persistence rate, particularly for retaining students who come from urban areas and/or far from the university campus. The influence of geographic characteristics on student persistence is a complex issue that relates to multi-faceted factors such as proximity of a student's home city to the university, urbanicity or the degree to which a student's home city is urban, and the university location. On most occasions, answers to the problem of whether or not students' home city geographic characteristics influence their retention cannot be easily obtained by speculation, gut feeling, or even logical inference. Colleges and universities, particularly those rurally located, need research efforts to understand the impact of students' geographic characteristics on their persistence so that they can better target on the student group and efficiently allocate efforts and resources for effective retention improvement. Research on the effects of geographic characteristics on retention has focused on the difference of persistence between rural and urban students in urban colleges and universities (e.g., Aylesworth & Bloom, 1976; Cope, 1972; Parsons, 1992; Swift, 1988; Wilbourn, 1987). Studies investigating the influence of students' home city geographic characteristics on their persistence at universities of rural location have appeared only sparingly in college retention literature. The relationship between students' home city geographic characteristics and their persistence at institutions of rural setting was rarely studied by taking into account of their unique geographic context. Important questions with regard to the success of retention efforts in retaining students of different geographic characteristics that are faced by many of the rural universities remain unanswered. The lack of studies on geographic location and its relationship to persistence illustrates an area that is in need of research and from which much can be learned (Castaneda, 2002). This study attempts to meet the need for research on the effects of the geographic characteristics of students' home city on their persistence. …