First-year Persistence and Retention Hit Decade High

Persistence rates among first-time students are the highest they have been in the past decade, according to a report released Thursday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Of first-year students who enrolled in fall 2022, 76.5% returned to college the following year, the clearinghouse said. That’s up from 75.7% among the previous year’s cohort and higher than pre-pandemic rates. The national retention rate also hit a decade high, rising to 68.2% among the fall 2022 cohort, up 1 percentage point from the year before. The persistence rate includes students who return to higher education after their first year, regardless of whether they stay at the same institution or transfer. Retention refers to those who continue at the same college.