Student Success Initiatives and Goals at New Mexico Tech

The academic success of our students is a priority for New Mexico Tech faculty and staff.  Some specific initiatives and resources focused on student success include: (1) Living/Learning Communities for new students, Tutoring for many undergraduate classes, and Peer Mentoring.  These programs are all coordinated by our Office of Student Learning.   (2) The Office of Student Success), which actively intervenes to assist students experiencing academic difficulties. (3) The the Writing and Communication Lab, where students can get hands-on help with writing assignments.

Retention, Persistence, and Graduation Rate Targets

The Faculty Senate Retention Committee is tasked with analyzing the factors that contribute to retention, persistence, and graduation of students at New Mexico Tech and making recommendations on ways to improve these rates. 

Based on committee recommendations, New Mexico Tech's strategic plans have, since 2010,  incorporated goals of 80% fall-to-fall retention of first-time full-time freshmen students and 50% for the 6-year graduation rate for first-time full-time freshmen.    

More recently, the committee has examined persistence and graduation rates for transfer students.  Preliminary analysis shows that transfer students actually persist and graduate at rates similar to freshmen.  

The Retention Committee has recommended, and the Faculty Senate has adopted in March of 2019, the following expanded set of goals for freshmen and transfer students:

  1. For first-time full-time bachelor's degree-seeking freshmen entering in the fall semester,
    • Fall-to-fall retention: 80%
    • Fall-to-fall-of-third year persistence: 67%
    • Six-year graduation:  50%
  2. For full-time bachelor's degree-seeking transfer students entering in the fall semester, 
    • Fall-to-fall persistence: 80%
    • Fall-to-fall-of-third-year persistence 67%
    • Six-year graduation: 50%

The following tables show recent retention, persistence, and graduation rates for freshmen and transfer students.  Although there has been substantial improvement in some of these rates in recent years, we are not yet at a point where we are consistently reaching these goals.

 

 Table 1: Freshmen retention, persistence, and 6-year graduation rates

Entry Year 

 Students 

 Fall-to-Fall 

 Fall-to-3rd-year 

 6-Year Graduation 

2006

282

74.5%

59.2%

47.2%

2007

241

69.3%

53.9%

41.5%

2008

286

71.7%

59.4%

45.1%

2009

255

73.7%

63.5%

49.0%

2010

333

73.9%

62.5%

49.3%

2011

324

74.1%

63.3%

47.2%

2012

346

76.6%

67.6%

55.8%

2013

316

78.8%

64.2%

 51.0%

2014

286

75.2%

61.5%

 56.3%

2015

338

76.9%

66.6%

56.8%

2016

301

74.4%

66.5%

55.2%

2017

239

75.3%

 63.2%

 

2018

305

76.7%

68.2%  

2019

250

81.2%

69.6%  

2020

276

76.5%

63.0%  

2021

298

75.2%

   

2022

299

 

   

 

Table 2: Persistence and 6-year graduation rates for transfer students. 

Entry Year 

 Number 

 Fall-to-fall 

 Fall-to-third-year 

 6-year Graduation 

2006

56

64.3%

53.6%

44.6%

2007

69

73.9%

60.9%

52.2%

2008

59

69.5%

50.9%

44.1%

2009

55

74.6%

65.5%

56.4%

2010

73

64.4%

63.0%

49.3%

2011

90

73.3%

64.4%

51.1%

2012

100

70.0%

60.2%

53.0%

2013

98

79.6%

71.4%

 63.3%

2014

99

70.7%

64.7%

 50.5%

2015

65

73.9%

67.7%

64.6%

2016

70

78.6%

75.7%

67.1%

2017

78

75.6%

73.1%

 

2018

60

78.3%

 66.7%  

2019

56

78.6%

69.6%  

2020

48

70.8%

54.2%  

2021

41

73.2%

   

2022

42

 

   

 

Student Success Data

Our Office of Institutional Research maintains up-to-date reports relevant to student success, including recent and historical retention and graduation rates.