Decades of research into student attrition offer a bevy of conflicting causes and cures for dropouts. However, the consistent factor most research identifies as a key antecedent to student persistence is faculty.

Considering the faculty connection to student persistence, I conducted focus group research with faculty at two universities that specialize in adult higher education to discover best practices for fostering adult-student goal commitment. Combined with an extensive review of retention literature in traditional higher education environments, the research suggests that universities with a myopic focus on institutional-centric "retention" initiatives may only make matters worse.