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Reviewed by:
  • Leaving College: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Attrition by Vincent Tinto
  • John M. Braxton
Leaving College: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Attrition
Vincent Tinto
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993, 312 pages $28.99 (softcover)

Leaving College: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Attrition by Vincent Tinto holds the stature as a fundamental text of the college student experience. Such a stature springs from two primary sources. The first source pertains to the importance of the problem of college student departure to understanding the college student experience. A window on the academic and social experiences of college students springs forth from an understanding of college student departure (Braxton, Sullivan, & Johnson, 1997). Moreover, students who depart from college fail to experience growth and development in the ways that transpire because of college attendance as documented in How College Affects Students (Volume 3): 21st Century Evidence That Higher Education Works (2016) by Matthew J. Mayhew, Alyssa N. Rockenbach, Nicholas A. Bowman, Tricia A. Seifert, and Gregory C. Wolniak with Ernest T. Pascarella and Patrick T. Terenzini.

The other source emanates from the profound and pervasive influence of this fundamental text on both the scholarly and practice communities that hold an interest in the problem of college student departure.

DESCRIPTION OF THE VOLUME

The 1993 publication of Leaving College stands as a second edition to the edition published in 1987 by The University of Chicago Press. In his review published by The Journal of Higher Education, John P. Bean stated: “This book appears to be the best compilation of ideas about understanding student departure from college written to date” (1988, p. 708). Bean noted that the purpose of this book centers on the revision of Tinto’s 1975 model published in The Review of Educational Research to more fully account for the longitudinal process of student departure. Bean also stated that this book was intended to assist institutional leaders in the use of the revised model of student departure to guide institutional practices to increase student retention and to steer future research on student departure.

This book has made some noteworthy contributions, such as Tinto’s contention that scholars and practitioners should use the word departure rather than drop out to characterize students who leave their initial college or university of enrollment (Bean, 1988). Bean noted that Tinto views departure as an interaction between the individual student and their institution. Another contribution is Tinto’s extension of van Gennep’s (1960) stages of rites of passage—separation, transition, and incorporation—to explain the process of integration into the college community. Bean called this extension “a brilliant addition to retention theory development” (p. 709). Moreover, this volume contributed to the further development of theory by offering a revision of Tinto’s 1975 model to include two additional concepts: intentions and external commitments. Bean asserted that this book also contributes to practice by describing six principles of institutional action to foster student retention. He noted that Tinto also discussed how adherence to each of these principles serves [End Page 129] as a guide to the development of institutional efforts to improve student retention.

The status of Leaving College as the second edition raises the question of the ways in which it differs from the first edition published in 1987. In addition to the inclusion of important research conducted since 1987, Tinto revised and extended the first edition in two significant ways. First, Tinto described the various ways his theory of student departure can be applied to students of color and to adult students. He also discussed its application to 4-year commuter colleges and universities and to 2-year colleges. Second, he outlined the important relationship between the classroom experiences of students and student persistence and learning. In doing so, Tinto demonstrated the relationship between the student’s experiences with the community of the classroom and other communities of the college.

An important set of formulations centered on the college as an interactive system comprised of academic and social informal and formal dimensions constitutes an additional contribution of both the first and second editions of Leaving College. These formulations posited academic and social integration as important factors...

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