Guiding Colleges to Higher College Student Retention Results

We consult with colleges that desire a more focused plan for improving college student retention, especially for the STEM majors. Most colleges have a strategy for improving their graduation rates. We help colleges identify and fill in the gaps and develop a more complete strategy. We consult on admission requirements for STEM majors, first-year programs that successfully engage STEM students and recruitment of women and minority students into engineering programs.

Our philosophy is to provide student retention consulting to meet YOUR needs and we will work with you to strive for significantly improved student retention results. Examples of our services include: working with your staff to develop a more effective advising strategy, conducting student success assessment studies and training your faculty and staff on first-year STEM and engineering retention success. See Our Services for more information.

Are you looking for customized help with freshman college retention? Do you need advice on achieving a first-year college student retention of 90% or more?

We are small and responsive to your college's success. We will work with you to provide a customized strategy for helping freshmen transition successfully to your college. Our research shows that an expectation of a high graduation rate in 4-6 years starts with a freshman retention rate of 90% or more.

Continuous Improvement Strategy for College Student Retention

Tired of the same student retention rate and in need of a better strategy? With our process improvement consulting experience, we will identify admission success factors and changes to your first year program that will give your college a potential for much higher first-year college student retention results and graduation rates.

The Veenstra Retention Model - Nine Pillars for Student Success

We use the Veenstra Model as an assessment framework to identify student backgrounds and experiences critical to student success for your college and to consult with you on a freshman college retention plan. The Veenstra Model works with all programs. It is based on research that showed that the pre-college characteristics that predict freshman engineering retention are different from those that predict general college student retention.
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Meet Cindy Veenstra

Cindy P. Veenstra, Ph.D. is the director for Veenstra and Associates and an ASQ Fellow. She has gained national recognition from her STEM student retention research through her ASEE and ASQ publications and would be happy to consult with you on how we engineer student success. Dr. Veenstra has extensive experience with consulting, on-site training and education assessment studies. She is a member of ASEE, ASQ, ASHE and SME and on LinkedIn and Twitter.
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