CLIOMETRICS AND THE COLLEGES: The Campus Condition, 1880 to 1910 John R. Thelin The use of statistics and ratios of institutional performance has become integral to the study of organizations in higher education. Unfortunately, analyses have been limited because HEGISdata and other comprehensive statistical bases have been compiled only for recent years. This study advances the notion of cliometrics- historical statistics -as a strategy for joining the study of the past and present condition of colleges and universities. To illustrate the applications of cliometrics, case studies of enrollment, retention, and attrition for the period 1880 to 1910 at Amherst, Harvard, Transylvania, Kentucky, and The College of William and Mary were summarized. The residual finding is that careful analysis of each institution's retention profiles prompts researchers to rethink the conventional wisdom about going to college as a cohesive, four-year experi- ence a century ago. ° , . . ° . . , . . . . . . . , . . , , ° . . . . ° . . . . . , . , o , . . . . . . . . . , . ° , . . . . . . ~ , . , , ~ . , . . . . . . ° . ~ , , , . . . . . . . ° . , ~ . . ° , . . . . • . . . . ° o , . ° ~ . . . . . . . . , . , ° . , , . . . . . . , . , ° , , ° o . . ° , . , , . , , ° m . . . , . , , , . . , | , ° . ~ ® ~ , . . , . ° , o , . , , ~ . ° . INDICATORS OF INSTITUTIONAL HEALTH During the past five years, a number of groups, including the National Association of College and University Business Officers (Dickmeyer and Hughes, 1979), the Association of American Colleges (Bowen and Minter, 1976), and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universi- ties have contributed to academic planning and applied research by intro- ducing deans and presidents to the use of HEGIS (Higher Education General Information Survey) statistics for plotting patterns and ratios as indicators of institutional health. Workshops often included mention of historical data, raising hopes that perhaps strategic planning and institutional research finally had overcome the myopia of the present by linking contemporary data and An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Association for the Study of Higher Education National Conference, Chicago, March 1984. John R. Thelin, School of Education, The College of William and Mary. Research in Higher Education © 1984 Agathon Press, Inc. Vol. 21, No. 4 425