Both black and Asian/Pacific Islander students have been leaving Iowa State in larger numbers after their first years, according to the ISU Fact Book.

One-year retention rates have steadily dropped for the past three years for both groups. One-year retention rates are shown as a percentage of how many students from each entering class return to Iowa State after their first year.

During the last three school years, the percentage of black students who returned to Iowa State for a second year fell by more than 7 percent, from 86 percent to 78 percent.

The one-year retention rate of Asian/Pacific Islander students fell even more, dropping by 12.5 percent, from 92 to 80 percent, during the past three school years.

Reasons for the rising numbers of minority students leaving Iowa State are not clear to university officials, but all the information they have points to Iowa State’s environment, not students’ academic situation, said Pete Englin, dean of students.

By every entering class’ third year of enrollment, the retention rate for the majority students in the class tends to level off, Englin said. But 4 to 6 percent of minority students do not return after their third year.

“We continue to see a decline in minority student enrollment throughout their time at Iowa State,” he said. “For whatever reason, we lose more minority students as their time at Iowa State goes on.”

To help solve this problem, Englin said, the university has recently completed a database that tracks the experiences minority students are having at Iowa State.

“We need to start paying attention to which students are staying and which students are going,” he said. “We know students who have a support system and feel connected to the university are much more likely to persist [in their studies here].

Thomas Hill, vice president for student affairs, said Iowa State has instituted programs geared toward minority students that he feels are helping to retain minority students.

“Maybe these students [who are leaving] aren’t in the programs we have in place,” he said. “There are a number of things that could be affecting retention rates. Tuition prices have risen drastically in the last few years, and that could be a part of it.”

Robert Bergmann, senior research analyst for the Office of Institutional Research, said the one-year retention rates of minority students can be misleading because the number of students in each group is small.

“The smaller the number of students, the more variability you will notice,” he said.

Since 1999, the number of black and Asian/Pacific Islander students enrolled each year has remained relatively stable, with both groups each representing about 3 percent of the total student body.

Not all minority student groups’ retention rates are going down, either. Hispanic students have seen a rise in enrollment and one-year retention rates, while American Indian/Alaskan Native students’ enrollment and retention rates have stayed about the same.

The exact number of first-year students from these groups who leave each year cannot be determined from the data provided by Office of Institutional Research and published in the annual ISU Fact Book.

Another figure not provided in the Fact Book is the retention rates of student groups sorted by gender in combination with race.

However, Bergmann said his office does collect this information. “It’s not one of the things the government is asking us to publish, but we do collect that data,” he said.