<p>Let me note that when I started my post, I too believe that freshmen retention rate can be important. The problem is that it is too easy to “game the system” with and there are many factors that lower the retention rate for valid reasons. For example,</p>
<ol>
<li>coops built into the curriculum</li>
<li>Kids who temporarily take a leave of absence</li>
<li>Schools who have an extremly difficult curriculum</li>
<li>Schools who have very tough grading standards.</li>
</ol>
<p>all of these factors lower the freshmen retention rate. Moreover, colleges can and seemingly do “game the system” in several ways such as:</p>
<p>1, Inflating grades
2. Not suspending students when they should be suspended etc.</p>
<p>Also by counting freshmen retention rate, you are essentially double counting admission standards. For example, higher SATs and GPAs in addmission usually result in higher retention. There is a strong corelation. US News rankings includes SATs and average class rank as a factor and ALSO includes freshmen retention rate,which in effect double counts admission standards. </p>
<p>Due to these reasons, I think freshmen retention rate, while interesting, should be eliminated from any ranking. It could be noted in the statistics. It should just not count in the formula.</p>