A Longitudinal Retention Study In An Urban Engineering School

The retention of undergraduate students in engineering programs has attracted considerable attention at Colleges and Universities across the Country. From an academic institutional standpoint, losing students from engineering programs can have serious resource and resource allocation ramifications. From a broader perspective, however, losing engineering students exacerbates the already serious problem of the shortage of engineers in the National workforce. While the number of undergraduate engineering degrees has decreased from roughly 85,000 in the mid-1980’s to roughly 60,000 at the turn of the century, the anticipated increase in the number of engineering positions by 2008 over that existing at the turn of the century is roughly 290,000. Attracting more students (particularly women and minorities) into engineering and retaining them are critically important concerns. While losing some students from engineering programs is expected, even desirable, it is important to measure and to evaluate the reasons for migration away from engineering in order to help determine optimum levels of retention for a given institution.