student retention 2013

Student Retention – a deeper look

Jaison Abey [email protected]

% of student members to total membership

1970 : 14.6%

1980 : 16.3%

1990 : 15.9%

2000 : 15.9%

2005 : 21.5%

2010 : 25.2%

Note the increase in

% of students over

the past 10 years

Numbers include both Undergraduate and Graduate Student Membership

IEEE Student Membership

107,812

Student/GSM Since 2007

Note: 2007 was first year for GSM membership grade

Slide 3

2011 student member retention :

Graduate students 67.9% ; Undergraduate students 32.4%

IEEE Membership Retention Rates (%’s)

82.883.782.882.983.184.284.581.6

84.084.885.887.588.3

50.547.3

53.554.456.5

61.163.7

57.8

62.263.166.1

69.372.4

76.176.276.877.078.080.180.9

77.380.381.683.0

85.186.4

2010200920082007200620052004200320022001200019991998

Higher Grade Members Student Members Overall

Slide 4

Zoom In – R10 and India

HG58%

GSM12%

StM30%

Region 10

HG76%

GSM10%

StM14%

Overall IEEE

HG30%

GSM11%

StM59%

India# Members: 379,266 84,254 33,947

(July 2011)

Courtesy: India Students Research Project by Dr. Mini S Thomas, Former MELCC Chair

*Past statistics required us to use the Level Data

Ten Year Membership Totals in Top Countries

- Higher Grade Membership (no GSM) -

Slide 6

0

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USA Canada Japan India UK&RI* Australia China Germany Italy Taiwan

2000 HG Members 2010 HG Members

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14,000

Zoom in on Rank 2-10


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5,000

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2000 STU 2010 STU*Past statistics required us to use the Level Data

Slide 7

Ten Year Membership Totals in Top Countries

- Student Membership (w/ GSM) -

Zoom in on Rank 3-15

0

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

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3,000

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4,000


Zoom In - India

Retention through July 2012

- India is the second largest country for student membership

- India has the lowest retention for student members

Total Student

Retention

UndergradStudent

Retention

Graduate Student

Retention

India 20% 18.1% 31.1%

Region 10 w/out India 49.7% 36.4% 58%

Regions 1-9 58.8% 41.8% 76.1%


What do we know?Year after year, this is what the membership in India looks like

0

2000

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12000

14000

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15+

STU-STU

STU-HG

HG-STU

HG-HG

AF-STU

AF-HG

Start Grade-Current Grade

IEEE Membership in India by Years of Service (14 Aug 2009)

Years of Service

Nu

mb

er

of

Me

mb

ers

Something is wrong with First Year student retention in India


Root Cause Analysis

• Benefits not available in India

• Benefits that only regional volunteers get (international travel funding)

Overselling IEEE Benefits

• Fresher's (18 years) don’t really know what they want

• Easily coaxed into joining IEEE based on flowery promises

Catching them young

• The first year costs only half

High price of membership

Zoom In – Section (Kerala Section, India – Case Study)

0

50

100

150

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Total 2010

Renewed 2010

Dropped 2010

DROP RATE

-Large vibrant branches have high drop rates

- New young branches have better retention

Root Cause Analysis

•Experienced volunteers know better how to sell IEEE (even using unrealistic benefits)

•Large number of students attend mass campaigning sessions

Aggressive Marketing

•Branches with high membership (50+) find it difficult to ensure reach of benefits to all volunteers

•Young volunteers (20 -22 years) may not be experienced enough to manage programs that benefit a large number of members

Problems of Scale

•Faculty and Management in several colleges are not genuinely interested in the growth of the student branch

Faculty and Management Involvement

General Findings

It is difficult to find general strategies that work across regions / countries

We may need to engage individual volunteer teams to devise strategies for student retention specific to Regions / Countries

General Action Items that MGA can take up are proposed below

12/16/201213

Suggestions for the MGA

•Currently rebates are tied to membership strength

•Suggested scenario (for a 4 year course)

•1 USD per new member

•2 USD for every member renewing second year

•3 USD for every member renewing third year

•4 USD for every member renewing fourth year

•Different rules may have to be applied for GSM

Tie Student Branch Rebates to Retention

•Outstanding Section Award (student retention added as a criteria in 2013)

•Regional Outstanding Student Branch Award (Plan to add retention as a criteria for 2014)

• Tie Retention as a criteria to Larry K. Wilson award (optional) and Outstanding Student Branch Counselor Award

•Significant cash award (USD 2000?) for every student branch achieving 100% retention for two consecutive years ( is this financially viable ? )

Tie Retention to Awards

Suggestions for the MGA (cont.)

• Successful model in R10

• IEEE-USA student congress in the pipeline

• Support for congresses (funding and speakers)

Regional / National Student Congresses

• Provide more frequent, easy to interpret reports to student activities volunteers

• Classified by Regions / Countries / Sections / SBs

• Access to Section Chairs / SACs / Branch Counselors, SB Chairs and other national and regional volunteers

Access to Membership and Retention Data

student retention 2013

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