Student retention is a major issue for post-secondary institutions including community colleges. Persistence rates are most alarming at the open access two-year institutions where the first to second year attrition rate is about 50% nationally. Researchers since the 1970's have determined that personal factors and institutional factors influence student retention. In general, colleges cannot control or change the personal factors. This is especially true for community colleges that have open-door policies for admitting students. Conversely, institutional factors can be modified and changed to improve student persistence. Student expectations and satisfaction are important to the student's success in the post-secondary setting. The first step in creating positive changes in institutional factors is assessment to determine which factors are important to students at a particular institution and to determine how satisfied students are with each of the factors.

This quantitative research study identified key constituents at a large, urban community college in North Texas and compared their expectations for institutional factors with their expressed satisfaction with those factors. This study utilized the Two-Year Community, Junior, and Technical College Version (Form A) of the Noel-Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory (NLSSI) to compare performance gap scores on 11 scales of satisfaction with institutional factors related to degree/certificate seeking student persistence at a large, urban community college in North Texas. Independent t-test data analysis found significant differences between the persisters group and the leavers group on two of the 11 scales. The results suggest that the scales Concern for the Individual and Instructional Effectiveness best differentiate persisters from leavers at the identified community college.