It is a waste of resources for a college to recruit, advise and coddle an incoming class of students to only lose 20-25% of them due to fail outs after the firs

It is a waste of resources for a college to recruit, advise and coddle an incoming class of students to only lose 20-25% of them due to fail outs after the first two semesters. Retention is a huge issue at state level universities. It's not really important that every kid goes to class, it's important for the university to be able to identify when a kid who usually goes to class suddenly stops. Computer attendance tracking is something the administration of KU have tossed around. They want to do a few things with it: 1. provide an early indication whether or not a student may be struggling due to something like alcohol abuse or personal difficulties that the university has structures/programs existing for support. (here, they will likely avoid the more big brother tag readers or "id card swipes in class" and use a metrics looking at meal plan use, gym activities, and student activity involvement.) 2. They'd like to very quickly nail down who is in what room in case of an emergency. (Chem lab catching fire, gunman, rabid badgers) This is pretty much a C-Y-A maneuver. 3. provide a system to the faculty that do pass around paper to opt-in and use. The paper passing around is hokey and requiring students to purchase a 50$ license for a 50$ 'click pad' ontop of the 150$ book is seen as asinine. I don't necessarily agree with any of this, it's just what has been discussed here.