1/3 of Freshmen Don't Return to Campus for Sophomore Year
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
This excerpt from Jeff Selingo's article, whom I highly respect, continues to highlight how critical career & aptitude tests is in making informed decisions about college and a person's future. When a young adult changes majors AND college, it's extremely difficult to overcome. In addition, around 1/4 don't return to any college. Wasted time, money, and self-defeated. Career counseling and testing should be the first step for everyone after high school.
Bestselling author | Special Advisor to President, Arizona State U. | College admissions and early career expert | Bylines: Atlantic, NYT, WSJ, New York magazine | Editor, Next newsletter | Co-host, Future U. podcast
March 31, 2026
Most college students are back on campus after Spring Break, and for freshmen it’s a moment of truth: am I returning for my sophomore year?
The big picture: One of the stats that surprises parents of high schoolers when I tell them is that nearly one-third of freshmen don’t return to their campus for sophomore year (around a quarter don’t return to any college).
What’s even more surprising is that those numbers mark a ten-year high. The “student success” movement in higher education has been itself a success, but since the pandemic, many college officials have told me their efforts on this front have plateaued.
What's more, at a time of scarce resources, student success efforts remain expensive to maintain with an army of advisors and technology that provides early alerts and predictive analytics to raise flags on students more likely to drop out.
Most colleges have spent decades building their student success programs but added them layer by layer without ever connecting them, argues Elliot Felix, who has worked with more than a hundred colleges on their strategies.
“Smart, well-meaning, and hardworking people succeed at helping students in spite of these structures, not because of them,” Felix writes in his book, The Connected College, which serves as a playbook for leaders looking to break down these silos.
Felix identifies six specific connections that institutions need to develop, from belonging to a community, to courses tied to careers, to partnerships with industry and other institutions. Most colleges have one or two, but very few have all six together.
The problem, as Felix outlines, is institutions keep adding programs and centers in response to each new student need, but never step back to connect them. The result is that 65% of academic advisors juggle two to three different technology systems, and that number rises to 75% for mental health staff.
What’s next: An evolution of student success, what I called “Student Success 2.0” in this new animated 3-minute short I recently released.
Student Success 1.0 was defined by retention and completion. Student Success 2.0 widens the lens to the entire student journey, connecting every touchpoint from advising to career planning.
The goal shifts from helping students get through college to helping them get ahead in life, a critical need when the first rungs on the career ladder after college are already disappearing because of AI.
SUPPLEMENTS
✈️ An Early Takeoff for Career Exploration. Most job titles are a foreign language to high school students, who pursue what they can see around them or on TV. Broadening that view early is the whole idea behind Butler Tech's new $15.5 million Aviation Center in Middletown, Ohio, where eighth graders tour a working hangar and watch students their age work on actual airplanes, Paul Fain writes in WorkShift. Those who apply enroll in 10th grade and spend three years specializing in piloting, maintenance, or engineering, graduating with FAA certifications, college credits, and in some cases an apprenticeship starting the following week. With 1,300 aviation maintenance jobs projected in Southwest Ohio by 2030, the pipeline needs to start long before college. (WorkShift)
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Reeder Consulting: College and Career Paths is a specialist in the career development field and the number one career counseling company in San Antonio, TX working with clients in all 50 states. We help individuals engage in career and aptitude testing to process information through meaningful conversations and give clarity to the stress of career decisions to Proceed with Confidence. www.reederconsulting.com
