Not crossing the finish line: An exploration of the reasons students at Concordia University, St. Paul get within fifteen credits of graduation but do not complete their bachelor's degree

Research on college student retention has been conducted for over four decades. However, the majority of this research focuses on first-year college students, with very few studies focusing on the retention of college seniors. While only a small percentage of college seniors withdraw from their universities, the impact of not obtaining a bachelor's degree after spending so much time and money can be detrimental to students' future economic and social mobility. This study, using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), was undertaken to better understand the decision making process of students who leave college with less than fifteen credits remaining. Participants included ten students who departed from Concordia University, St. Paul (CSP), a small, private, Lutheran university in St. Paul, Minnesota, in their senior year with very few graduation requirements remaining. The decision-making processes of the students interviewed were quite varied, leading to four superordinate themes: Timely Degree Completion, Distrust in the Academic Process, Barriers to Final Degree Completion, and Success without a Bachelor's Degree. While the findings indicated that students make the decision to leave late in the college career for a wide variety of reasons, it is clear from this study that colleges and universities need to focus more on their college seniors and work with them all the way to graduation through continued outreach and support. Also, additional research needs to be conducted to better understand this extremely under researched college student population.