The Impact of a College Survival Skills Course and a Success Coach on Retention and Academic Performance

Student retention is an ongoing concern of many postsecondary institutions ( Kuh, 2008 ). Student engagement might be a key to addressing retention issues in terms of building relationships between students and their college. One technical college has found that attrition in learning support math courses contributes greatly to the overall college retention issue and that academic success in these courses has some influence. Drawing from current literature, the college addressed this issue by developing both a College Survival Skills course for learning support math students and by hiring a person to serve students in the role of Success Coach. After a year of implementing both interventions, data has begun to show improvements in semester retention, persistence to graduation, and academic success.