Improve academic performance and social support by facilitating adaptation in the university

In Colombia and Latin America, barely one half of students who are admitted to higher education actually completes their studies and obtains a college degree within a six-year period. Such incommensurable attrition poses huge social and economic costs, given the inverse relationship between education and factors like poverty, inequality, violence, health issues, and mortality. Therefore, understanding this phenomenon and its determinants, and effectively reducing attrition rates should be a priority in government and universities’ agendas. Both for socially responsible and for strategic reasons, higher education institutions should strive to improve retention rates and increase students’ likelihood of successfully graduating from their programs. Based on our firsthand experience in a private business school in Colombia, we estimate the effect of the Student Follow-up and Retention Program using a regression discontinuity and difference-in- differences empirical strategies, that will help improve retention and increase students’ likelihood of successfully graduating.