One of the stats that we always like to track is called the Stick Rate. What does that mean? The Stick Rate is a basic measurement of how long students are staying in your school. This figure goes together with the Retention Rate.
Let’s cover the Retention Rate first. This is the easiest to track with a spreadsheet or a database software solution. Let’s say that at the beginning of the year you had 100 students. In that year, you started 50 new students. At the end of the year, you have 125. You do not have the 150 that you thought you might have.
Last Year 100
Started 50
Total 150
Current Active 125
Retention Rate 125 ÷ 150 = 83% or a student loss ratio of 17%
Now, those figures are over a one-year period. I like to track this monthly. That way if I see a trend of attrition, I can start to look where the problem might be. Are the classes too hard? Are the classes too easy? Is the material being presented easy to do and understand? These are just some of the questions or areas that you can look at.
Monthly is calculated like this:
Last Month 100
Started 05
Total 105
Current Active 102
Retention Rate 102 ÷ 105 = 97% or a student loss ratio of 3%
Most schools try to keep their loss ratio of 5% or lower.
Now from this figure, we can start to figure out our Stick Rate.
The basic formula looks like this:
Average Tenure measures how long on average a member stays with an association.
Reciprocal of Renewal Rate: 1 – Renewal Rate or, 1 – .90 = .10
Example: Divide Reciprocal into 1, or, 1 /.10 = an Average Tenure of 10 years
The above formula is over a large period with a lot of members. This is fine for a large organization, but I like to see this again monthly. This figure determines when students are dropping out of school. This is important to know so you can adjust your sales, class training, and membership terms. Here’s a simple formula you can use. It’s not as accurate as of the one above but works fine as a snapshot of your monthly stick rate.
Here’s the basic formula:
ML = number of members last period
MT – number of members this period
ML ÷ MT = RR
(1 ÷ RR)*10 = Stick Rate
Students Last Month 100
Students this Month 105
Retention Rate (100 ÷ 105) = .95
Stick Rate (1 ÷ .95) *10 = 10.5 months
Now suppose you lost students
Students Last Month 100
Students this Month 97
Average Month Stay (100 ÷ 97) = 1.03
Stick Rate (1 ÷ 1.03) * 10 = 9.7 months
As you can see there is a drop in the number of months that people are staying. The average for most schools is seven to nine months. If you can get above this figure, then you’re doing better than most.
