Reassessing Tinto's Concepts of Social and Academic Integration in Student Retention

The purpose of this article is to trace the development of the Tinto framework for student integration and to critically analyze the application of the framework with nontraditional student populations. Specifically, the terms academic and social integration have become synonymous with student retention and, by extension, categories by which to differentiate certain predicator variables. However, outside the residential 4-year context, commuter, distance and online, community college, and other 2-year institutions, as well as nontraditional, racial, and ethnic minorities have proven that this terminology is not sufficient and even harmful to gaining further clarity to student retention. Future research might clarify the distinctions between academic and social integration for nontraditional students. Nonetheless, the literature is clear that campus relationships matter to student persistence. This replicated finding has important implications for practitioners at institutions with large nontraditional populations. These implications are discussed in the article.