As classes resume for Ashland’s spring 2011 semester, the school faces a yet-to-be-determined rate of students returning from the previous semester, which saw the beginning of a retention drive announced by President Dr. Frederick Finks and led by Student Success and Retention Director Kathy Stone.

According to Stone, the retention rate measuring the number of new students returning next year will not be determined until next fall.

However, a more immediate persistence rate will be determined at the end of the third week of classes that will show how many students returned to Ashland after the previous semester, she said.

“It is during the third week that the Office of Institutional Research freezes the data (or takes a snapshot of the current data) to determine the persistence rate by class rank (i.e. freshmen, sophomore, junior, senior),” Stone said. “We wait until the third week, so that withdrawals have been entered in the system by the registrar’s office.”

While these numbers haven’t been determined yet, Stone did identify that the potential student losses post-winter break were primarily related to financial issues.

Stone stated that social issues-not having enough weekend activities on campus, not making friends and connections, finding the university to be too small, and lack of social life-were prime factors in decreased student persistence as well.

Students who did not return this semester can likely identify with these issues.

Sophomore Jeff McNerney withdrew from AU over winter break and will return to his social work studies at Cleveland State University in the fall.

According to McNerney, the decision to transfer was the financially smarter choice.

“If cost wasn’t an issue, I definitely would have stayed but it was just too much,” he said.

McNerney said it is likely that students choose not to “wait out” the school year before they decide to transfer, as many students feel alone and realize, “The quicker they can get out, the better.” Therefore, they do not consult the counseling services or student help on campus and make hasty decisions to leave between semesters.

“I think a lot of students don’t know what to do,” McNerney said.

“Ashland is a very small town and most students come from big cities like Cincinnati or Columbus or Cleveland and they are used to having something to do.”

Ashland, in general, needs to seem like a fun place and try to reach every student in order to improve retention, McNerney said.

“I know their (AU administration) hands are tied, but if they could lower tuition that would help out a lot,” McNerney said. “They need to be more aggressive on reaching the students.”

Stone said that efforts continue toward achieving the school’s goal of seeing the retention rate increase by 1 percent yearly, separating it from its retention rate of 69 percent held for the 2009 freshmen class.