Can labor markets with expansive job opportunities affect U.S. university retention rates?

American colleges each year compete to increase their retention rates and attract the new pool of high school graduates into their programs. At the individual level, a utility maximizing unit of labor will always consider its lost income from being gainfully employed versus the potential skills and future income of attending a four-year College or University. In this paper we attempt to answer “do Universities located in labor markets with more job opportunities have lower retention rates?” after controlling for retention theory, educational policy, institutional factors and other individual characteristics such as minority and economic status.