Strengths-Based Interventions Boost College Student Retention

Nearly one in five (19%) first-year college students enrolled in four-year institutions did not return for their second year between 2022 and 2023.

Stopping out of college has serious implications for the students’ future wellbeing. Students who complete any level of postsecondary education have greater life satisfaction, earn higher incomes, have better physical health and are more likely to be civically engaged.

Besides the negative consequences of stopping out for students, there are also negative consequences for educational institutions. Given that the average U.S. college tuition is currently $10,662 for public, in-state students, $23,630 for public, out-of-state students, and $42,162 for private college students, college student attrition can be extremely costly for schools.

Strengths-based interventions are one way that educational institutions could improve student retention, as young adults who know and use their strengths are more engaged in their schooling.

Many colleges and universities have integrated CliftonStrengths and strengths-based development into student orientation, academic advising, residence life and academic curriculum. To date, of the 32 million people who have taken the CliftonStrengths assessment and 6 million were students. Last year alone, over 500,000 students took the assessment to discover their strengths.

Because of the growing number of college students participating in strengths-based development, Gallup conducted a meta-analysis -- or a study of studies -- that evaluated the relationship between strengths-based interventions and college student retention.

The results of the meta-analysis suggest that strengths-based interventions can reduce the number of students who discontinue enrollment between their first and second years of college.

The Meta-Analysis

A meta-analysis is a statistical method that combines results from multiple studies to estimate a relationship across all the studies included.

Researchers who are not affiliated with Gallup conducted six studies that were included in the meta-analysis. The six studies investigated a total of 9,113 students. Each study compared retention rates between a group of students who completed a strengths-based intervention and a group of students who either did not complete an intervention or completed a less involved intervention (e.g., a feedback session with a counselor vs. just taking the assessment).

The strength of the relationship across studies varied, but all individual studies found that students who experienced strengths-based interventions returned for their second year of college at a higher rate than students who did not experience an intervention or experienced a less involved intervention.

The results of the meta-analysis indicate that the overall meta-analytic effect size for the relationship between strengths-based interventions and college student retention is a Cohen’s d of 0.43, which corresponds to a correlation of 0.21. This means that strengths-based interventions increase student retention rates by 0.43 standard deviation units. The practical utility of this result, in terms of improvements to attrition rates, is described in the next section.

How Strengths-Based Interventions Affect Retention

The meta-analytic results show a positive relationship between strengths-based development and staying in college. However, it can be challenging to determine the practical utility of strengths-based interventions from a correlation.

We conducted a utility analysis to estimate how many fewer students would stop out of their college degree if strengths-based interventions were widely adopted. The utility analysis converts meta-analytic results into practical, more tangible metrics.

Our utility analysis combined college student retention rates from the National Center for Education Statistics Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System with our meta-analytic results. We estimated how much student attrition would decline if first-year students across different types of institutions participated in strengths-based interventions.

The analysis indicates that strengths-based interventions could decrease student attrition rates by 4.73 percentage points. In other words, if institutions adopted strengths-based interventions, our meta-analysis suggests that students would be 25% less likely to discontinue enrollment between their freshman and sophomore years.

Strengths-based interventions have the potential to decrease student attrition rates by 4.73 percentage points.

If educational institutions consistently adopted strength-based interventions, students would be 25% less likely to discontinue enrollment between their freshman and sophomore years.

Conclusion

Higher education institutions can improve student retention and outcomes by using strengths-based interventions. This approach helps students recognize and apply their natural talents and develop them into strengths.

The implications for students -- and their futures -- are far-reaching when considering the damaging effects of stopping out. Students who start college but do not finish often find themselves worse off than their counterparts who never enrolled.

There are also financial implications for educational institutions. Given typical tuition costs and the fact that the National Center for Education Statistics estimates that the average college freshman class for U.S. degree-granting institutions consists of nearly 900 students, minimizing student attrition can lead to substantial savings for schools.

When effectively integrated into student programs and campus culture, the CliftonStrengths assessment can have a lasting effect on student retention, especially for those at risk of stopping out.