To the Editor:

Once again the National Survey of Student Engagement has provided important information for colleges and universities ("Half of Seniors Took Courses Elsewhere Before Enrolling at Current College," The Chronicle, November 11). It has, however, overlooked a singularly important aspect of engagement, which explains quite a bit of the "swirl pattern": The percentage of students who start at a four-year college with plans to leave it is small, but students' disappointment with their chosen institution is significant.

Freshmen have worked hard to be accepted by a college and in so doing began to make an emotional and personal commitment to the institution, just like people getting married. They do not start with the idea that they will get divorced from their spouse or college in a semester. They start with a commitment to see the relationship work. They want to be engaged in and by the college, and get back as much as they put in -- but when things don't work out, they look elsewhere. ...

Attrition and swirl seem to be a problem at almost every college and university, even the name-brand institutions that students worked extremely hard to get into. ...

Why? The answers often lie in what many professors see as a noxious concept foisted on them by administrators who have read too many business books: customer service. Since the 1960s we have recognized that students are more consumer minded, but we have made few real changes to accommodate them.

Today students and their families see college as a place to get the certification for a job. ... For most, education is more a commodity than a privilege. And they expect to be pleased at their college, to be treated as a valued client. But too many colleges have ignored the shifts and refuse to acknowledge the need to focus on client-service issues.

It is poor or weak client service that creates most of the divorces between student and college. The counseling to save the marriage needs to be done not with the student but with the college, if the relationship is to last longer than the honeymoon period between acceptance and orientation. And that counseling needs to focus on providing the level of client services that students want and expect.

Neal Raisman

Chancellor

Briarcliffe College

Bethpage, N.Y.