OEDb's Online College Rankings 2009: Ranking by Retention Rate

A college's retention rate reflects the student body's overall interest in what's being offered by the college. This one figure can explain many factors that compose the attractiveness of a college, including the administration's competence, the quality of its teaching staff, the quality of the curriculum, the willingness of its students, and the perceived value of what is being taught. The retention rate figures are provided by the College Navigator database from the Institute of Education Sciences, a sub-agency of the US Department of Education. College Navigator defines retention rate, for 2007, as the percentage of first-time bachelor's (or equivalent) degree-seeking undergraduates from fall 2006 who again enrolled in fall 2007.

College Navigator did not have retention rate figures for all of the online colleges. We did not however want to penalize those colleges without figures. To that end, we have adjusted the rankings of the colleges in this category. Read more about adjusted rankings.

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OEDb's Online College Rankings ranks 44 of the nation's top online colleges by eight different metrics. Please read more about this study or about our methodology for additional information.