Student Retention and Enrollment Dynamics in Selected Nigerian Private Universities Utilizing a Markov Chain Approach

Markov frameworks help address important problems in Universities because of the abundance of information these institutions collect for administration and admissions, as well as for documenting student enrollment. The current academic regulations at Covenant University (CU), Babcock University (BU), and Redeemer's University (RU) are flexible regarding the order in which students earn their degrees. This results in a range of enrollment sequences and an average period to the degree, as well as to enrollment and retention. This implies using a hidden Markov model with hidden states to identify academic bottlenecks and enhance admissions by grouping students into homogeneous classes. This provides a similar absorbing state for both undergraduate and postgraduate students, thereby optimizing student retention.