MU sees retention rate bump, still has long way to go

Photo: Emily Benson

By: Leena Raza

Marymount’s overall retention rate has bumped up from a very low 65-70 percent to 79 percent this past year. Despite improvement, this continues to fall short of President Matthew Shank’s goal of 85 percent, and he believes this is largely due to financial issues.

Marymount is a private university, but Shank wants to make sure that he can help as many people find an affordable path to enrollment as a Saint.

To help this situation, Shank is getting ready to do a university funding campaign of $40 million. Perhaps gaining this much money could help reach Shank’s retention rate goal.

Retention rate is a statistic that is calculated on almost every college campus. It is important to know so universities can understand why or why not a student has left the university before attending his/her sophomore year.

“We’re especially mindful that freshmen come back in their second year,” Shank said.

According to Shank, another thing that can affect retention rate is how many commuters and residents there are.

“The retention numbers aren’t gonna be as high as a pure residential campus,” Shank said. “I very rarely hear people say ‘We hate Marymount University. We don’t want to come back because we had a terrible experience.’ I am absolutely positive there are people out there like that, but by large it’s financial,” said Shank.