This report looks closely at the student retention efforts of 50 American colleges and universities including the University of Delaware, Auburn, Sarah Lawrence and Georgia State University, among many others. The 100+ page study gives detailed data on retention rates overall and for many specific categories of students such as distance learning students, graduate students, part time students, and other categories.  The study presents highly detailed data on the retention effort including current and planned spending on consultants, information resources and conferences and retention staff.  The study helps retention professionals to answer questions such as: what do peers consider to be the most important elements of a retention effort? How important is financial aid? Counseling? Tutoring? Student activities? Early identification efforts for troubled students?  Data is broken out for size and type of college (community college, 4-year, MA/PHD and research university) as well as for public and private colleges and, critically in this case, by level of tuition.