Here Today, Gone Next Year

Holding onto the freshmen that Lyndon State College brings in is an issue without an easy solution.

According to the Vermont State Colleges' website, the retention rate for first-year full-time students was 59 percent in 2009, the last year information was made available, and all accounts say the last two years were not much better.

"Some students don't know what they want to do with themselves and as a society it's just this kind of known expectation that the next step is college," said Director of First-Year Experience Donna Keely. "So they just go to college because that is what people are telling them that is what they should be doing."

What and where LSC is can also be an issue to new students.

"Many students come to Lyndon never having been here before and then they arrive and they have this kind of Hollywood notion of what college is going to be like," she said. "They miss having that accessibility to all of those restaurants and movies and malls and big fraternity or sorority houses or whatever that notion might be."

Some see it more as a problem of where they are coming from, not so much where they are going.

"There is that certain group of students that is just completely not prepared for college," said Assistant Professor of Visual Arts Philip Parisi. "Everything was handed to them in high school and they were taught to the test. We are not teaching to a test anymore. You have students coming in that you are expecting from the day they walk in to think for themselves, they are totally unprepared for that."

According to U.S. News, LSC has a 98 percent acceptance rate. Some point to that as to why students do not stick around.

"Some of the students that are admitted to Lyndon State have a very, very limited chance of success," said Professor of Education Barry Hertz. "It would be possible to foresee a number of students here that wouldn't be successful. It would help us all if we had a little bit more robust admissions policy."

Hertz was quick to point out that he does not want to close the school off to those who may not appear to be great candidates.

"I also believe that there are a large group of people who come here that you would scratch your head and you would say with work this person could succeed and I think those people should have a shot," he said. "I think there are also students that we admit that really don't have a shot."

Not all agree that the school needs to have a more rigorous admissions process.

"I hear some faculty say ‘bring us better students' and my answer to that is shame on us," said Assistant Professor of Business Administration Rod Jacobson. "We need to figure out how to educate the people that we have coming to the college. They are coming to us and looking for us to be able to deliver it in the best possible way that we can."

Bringing in many students  is an essential piece of what the VSC and LSC are about.

"Part of the mission of Lyndon State College is to be an access point for Vermonters for higher education," said Professor of Atmospheric Sciences Nolan Atkins.

In conjunction with this, the lack of state funding for the VSC has caused the schools to become tuition dependent.

"It's the nature of the business right now," said Assistant Professor of Social Sciences/Political Science David Plazek. "The motive becomes keep students at all costs because that is how we finance this operation. In 1980 over 50 percent of the funding for Vermont State Colleges was funded by state revenues. Now it is down to 18 percent. There is your problem right there. Lyndon State is just trying to survive in shark infested waters."

But bringing in students just to pay the bills does not sit right with some.

"Students will spend one, two or three semesters here creating debt for themselves," said Hertz. "I'm worried about the fairness of taking their money. I feel sorry for the students that have created a great deal of debt and then are not successful."

Just having the chance at a degree and possibly a better life is worth the risk to others.

"Giving people a chance in the first year, I'm ethically comfortable with that," said Plazek. "In a perfect world I would say have more rigorous standards and I would say have lower tuitions and have more tax support of higher education. There are some ethical concerns and considerations, but what good is the school if it closes?"

Having more strict admissions standards means less students and less students means less money.

LSC is doing what it can to help the students they have be successful.

"The retention rate is what it is," said Atkins. "But I will say that the college is doing a lot more than other colleges to make sure the students are supported here and to retain them."

INT Classes Help Turn the Tide

One of the ways that the school has attacked the problem of retention is with classes designated to help freshmen become better college students.

All of the faculty and staff members interviewed for this story are currently teaching INT 1020 Entering an Academic Community. This class aids students with teaching them better study habits, how to register for classes, etc.

When Keely arrived in 2005 the retention rate was down to 53 percent. After the introduction of the INT classes and peer leaders it went up to 60 percent.

The professors who teach the class see the difference it makes.

"It's nice to help ground some students as to what's really important, what things they really need to pay attention to," said Jacobson. "This is the beginning of their adult life."

The question has come up as to whether or not to keep the section mandatory because veterans and non-traditional students do not find much use in it.

"I would vote in support of keeping it a requirement," said Plazek "But I would suggest that we should have a system where people can, on a case by case basis, make the case that they should be waived from this requirement."

There is also the option of creating a special class just for those non-traditional and veteran students that do not need INT 1020.

"They are in a different place then someone who just left high school three months ago," said Keely. "We'll likely see something in place for next fall with those two populations in mind."