A Novel Metric for Evaluating the Relationship Between Course Outcomes and Persistence

Declines in university enrollment due to the pandemic and declining demographics has pushed retention to the forefront. The relationship between course grades and persistence is combined into a new metric coined the Persistence Differential. This metric signals courses with higher counts of students earning not-quality grades and not persisting and is used to inform academic advising and curriculum review to improve retention. Challenges and successes in reporting the data meaningfully and examples for actionability will be described.