Completing College: Rethinking Institutional Action

by Vincent Tinto

Even as the number of students attending college has more than doubled in the past forty years, it is still the case that nearly half of all college students in the United States will not complete their degree within six years. It is clear that much remains to be done toward improving student success. For more than twenty years, Vincent Tinto’s pathbreaking book Leaving College has been recognized as the definitive resource on student retention in higher education. Now, with Completing College, Tinto offers administrators a coherent framework with which to develop and implement programs to promote completion.

Deftly distilling an enormous amount of research, Tinto identifies the essential conditions enabling students to succeed and continue on within institutions. Especially during the early years, he shows that students thrive in settings that pair high expectations for success with structured academic, social, and financial support, provide frequent feedback and assessments of their performance, and promote their active involvement with other students and faculty. And while these conditions may be worked on and met at different institutional levels, Tinto points to the classroom as the center of student education and life, and therefore the primary target for institutional action.

Improving retention rates continues to be among the most widely studied fields in higher education, and Completing College carefully synthesizes the latest research and, most importantly, translates it into practical steps that administrators can take to enhance student success.

Genres: Education, Leadership, Grad School, Nonfiction

283 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2012

Reviews

[J.L. Sutton]

Overall, this is much more engaging than Vincent Tinto’s earlier seminal work, Leaving College. It feels more like a call to action. Tinto identifies core programs which support student persistence and completion. In a sort of case study style, he then shows how various institutions have successfully implemented these programs. Some of the support programs identified and modeled include career counseling, first-year seminars, mentoring, service learning, supplemental instruction, peer tutoring and learning communities.

[Jeannie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book whether you work at a two year or four year college/university. It is also great for administrators and faculty. Tinto creates an easy framework to follow. He uses case studies as examples and provides an excellent review of the literature concerning the various factors of retention. I highly recommend this book.

[Trae Brookins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've gone back and read Tinto's 1975 paper and several other journal articles. An excellent framework for assessing institutional effectiveness with regards to student completion. I'll be going back to read his book, Leaving College, from the 80s. I highly recommend for those in HED.

[Bonnie Irwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A call for action for those of us in higher ed. Putting the students at the center, increasing persistence and completion rates, and keeping high standards along the way will allow us to be more successful in our work. I should have gotten to this one a lot sooner!

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the focus of this book on the classroom as the building block of an institution's retention strategy. It is the one place that all students interact with the institution.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Today, degree completion is on the mind of every college administrator. I was excited to learn Tinto had written a book on the subject and immediately purchased it when a keynote speaker at a student success conference mentioned it. Overall, the book is a useful guide to reshaping how we approach student success. I was disappointed in the first five chapters, however, which are a solid review of the current student success literature but offered little new insight. For educators not familiar with the literature on student expectations, student support, assessment, feedback and involvement/engagement, Chapters 1-5 provide a well-written, helpful and easy to digest overview. Chapter 4 on assessment and feedback was weak, however, and could have been strengthened with the many examples of innovative assessment practices that are developing at community colleges as well as the curricular and assessment efforts occurring nationwide in K-12.

Throughout the book, Tinto highlights the importance of college leaders and faculty of being on the same page when it comes to student success. While we know different agendas, perspectives and egos can get in the way of any institutional goal, Tinto provides a useful reminder that colleges and universities have a “moral obligation – to establish those conditions on campus, especially in the classroom, that enhance the likelihood that students who are willing to expend the effort will succeed” (p. 120). Unity in purpose is critical to create the institutional conditions necessary to improve student progress to degree completion.

On several occasions, Tinto states the obvious (or what I think is obvious but apparently needs to be stated!). He promotes the need for institutions to support the development of student success programs for three to four years to truly realize their potential impact. While practitioners know adequate time is needed to fully develop new initiatives, this can often be overlooked in consideration of other competing pressures, especially budget. In Chapter 6 and elsewhere, he reminds the reader that student success is a function of the classroom and encourages leaders to invest in faculty development and to provide the time, space and incentives for them to participate, since “it follows that any long-term strategy to enhance student retention must involve long-term investment in faculty development” (p. 87). Tinto explains that pilot programs need to go after small successes in order to get the necessary support for continuation. He also points out that student success programs cannot create change if on the periphery of the institution; for programs to endure, they must be centrally located within the institution with shared leadership and ownership. College and university leaders need to be reminded of these straightforward ideas to successfully implement programs that will move the needle on their students’ successful completion. Tinto’s authority on college students can be wielded to remind ourselves of what needs to be done to create change in how students experience college.

[Leah Wescott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read. Act. If you work in higher education Tintoretto is a must.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was terrible. I read it as quickly as possible because it was assigned for a course and I just wanted the pain to end. At best it is 100s of pages of data dump. It is poorly organized, especially the support chapter which brought up financial support randomly throughout the chapter instead of devoting an actual topic to it. There is so much data provided in this book but not once is it brought together with any cohesive conclusions. By the end of the text, the reader has no idea what best practices are but has a vague idea of every practice ever used. At the end of the book I expected a conclusion and for the author to pull all the data together with a sound recommendation for change. Instead, there are weak suggestions for items that most institutions have already implemented. The suggestions are not even well supported. For someone who has provided SO much information and data, one would think that they could soundly support their reasoning for suggestions for improvement.

[Kari Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably one of the better books necessary for my program. Tinto does not just speak from opinion or says that there is one example of this and moves on. Completing College uses several examples and expresses details about program that are in place at various institutions (community colleges and 4-year public and private). The writing is not dense to the point of boredom but is extremely educational. Lastly, not only does Tinto express the issues that institutions are facing, but also offers solutions and gives excellent examples of how that solution could look.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

This illustrates the problem with solely relying upon the most rigorous research int college effectiveness--there's only a few things that get tested and anyone who has paid some attention to the subject already has already heard of it. That said, if you aren't familiar with strategies to help college completion (and why are you reading this if you don't) then there probably are some new and interesting things here.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good 30,000 foot level review, but not enough detail to provide strong support at the implementation level. Of course, this us likely because the evidence base is slim and the book relies on marketing to fill the big gaps.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, solid review of research on student persistence and what works institutionally.

[Ghayath Abbas · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a great book from great author "Dr. Tinto", which spent last 2 decades studying in depth the retention and persistence science.

[Monique · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr. Tinto is amazing and this book continues the trend of sound research. I actually ordered a copy of the book for my personal library.

[Gregory Linton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book by the foremost expert on student retention and success distills his lifetime of work and research into clear and applicable lessons.