How do we tell from our own data whether recruitment or retention is the problem?
You can tell from your own data whether recruitment or retention is the problem by following students or participants through each stage of the program and identifying where the numbers drop, and many programs already keep the records needed to do this, even if no one has put them side by side.
Where to look, and what each stage can tell you
| Stage | What to count | What it can tell you |
|---|
| Interest | Inquiries, applications, and where applicants heard about the program | Whether enough of the right people know the program exists |
| Enrollment | Students who enrolled, compared with the seats available | Whether recruitment is filling the program |
| Each term | Students who returned for the next term or course | Where in the program students are leaving |
| Completion | Students who finished, and how long it took them | How many of the students you recruited reached the end |
| Afterward | Credentials earned, jobs, and further education | Whether finishing led where students hoped it would |
Then break each stage down by group, such as full-time and part-time students, students who are working, students at different sites, and students who entered through different routes. If your applications rise each year while completion stays flat, that's a pattern to understand before your organization invests in more outreach. Do we need new surveys, or can we use what we already collect? covers how to start from the records you have.
How do we compare the cost of recruiting a student with the cost of keeping one?
You can compare the cost of recruiting a student with the cost of keeping one by listing what each requires in your program, in staff time as well as money. Recruitment costs include outreach events, school visits, advertising and materials, the staff hours spent advising applicants, and the work of processing enrollment. Keeping students costs advising, tutoring, emergency funds, transportation help, schedule changes, and the time someone spends checking in when a student starts missing class.
Here's an example with made-up numbers. Suppose a program spends a semester of outreach and staff time to enroll 40 new students, and 15 of them leave during the first term. The program has paid to recruit 40 students in order to keep 25, and some of next semester's outreach will go toward replacing the 15 who left. If adding advising hours or an evening section would keep even a few of those 15, that cost is worth comparing with the cost of recruiting the same number of new students.
No one can responsibly tell you in advance which investment will pay off more in your program, and we wouldn't. What good information can do is show you where your program is losing students and help you determine where additional effort is likely to make a meaningful difference. Estimate the costs you can't calculate exactly, document how you estimated them, and use the same method each year.
When is recruitment the right place to put our effort?
Recruitment is the right place to put your effort when your program has empty seats and the students who do enroll tend to finish, because then the limit is how many students you reach rather than how many stay.
Recruitment may also deserve more effort when your enrollment doesn't reflect the community you serve. If the people you most want to reach don't know the program exists, or have never seen anyone like themselves in the field, more of the same outreach may not change who applies. How do students actually end up choosing a career path? looks at why some students never consider a field.
A new program is a special case, because until a few cohorts have moved through it, you may not have enough information to determine whether students are finishing, so it's worth tracking each stage from the start.
Can recruiting and keeping students work together?
Recruiting and keeping students can work together when recruitment gives students an accurate picture of the program before they enroll. Students who know what the schedule, the cost, the workload, and the work itself will be like can plan for them. Students whose circumstances make the program unworkable can find that out before they've invested their time and money.
The connection runs the other way too. What you learn from students who leave can shape how and whom you recruit, and what you adjust in the program so that more of the students you want to reach can finish it. If many of your students are working adults, for example, the right response may be a schedule that works for them rather than a different recruitment message.
Why students leave is its own question, covered in Students start our program and don't finish. Why?. If the people leaving are employees, Our younger employees and our newer immigrant employees leave first. What are we missing? looks at the employer side.
The Grantibly perspective
Lauren's perspective
Our evaluation work has given us a close-up view of the education-to-workforce pipeline: how people are recruited into career pathways, what helps them persist, and where they encounter barriers. Getting people through the door is only part of the challenge. A program that keeps recruiting without asking why students leave can end up continually replacing students it has already recruited and supported.
Before investing in a solution, a program needs to understand the problem it is actually trying to solve. Administrative data might show that one group has lower completion rates, and participant feedback may reveal barriers the numbers alone can't identify. So instead of asking only how many students enrolled, we'd rather ask who enrolled, who didn't, what they experienced, and what changed as a result.
