Student Attrition at the Five Federal Service Academies. Enclosure B:

A large number of studies potentially relevant to answering the question of why students leave Federal service academies before graduating were identified and collected.

Examination of the studies and other documents left a number of impressions about the limitations in the available studies of student attrition from the academies, about what is known of the causes of attrition, and about the implications for future research in this area. The following actions would reduce the large gaps which still remain in understanding attrition: (1) more scientific research should be conducted on the academy environment and its effects on the students; (2) groups conducting the research should be affectively outside the direct control of top academy officials; (3) research should be conducted periodically and at all the academies simultaneously; (4) the concept of interactions should be investigated more thoroughly; (5) the effect of planned variations in the academies' environments should be evaluated; and (6) an objective method of assessing the quality of dropouts should be established.