The current decline in enrollment of traditional students, high school graduates, at vocational college in Korea has been assumed to have a significant impact on the decrease in investments, the decline of diversified curriculum and facilitied, the lagging innovation in college administration, and the reduction-in-force of professors. With this problem, student retention in vacational colleges becomes a hot issue to be tackled with. This paper aims at drawing implications from student relation studies, which were mainly performed at the period of student attrition in the United States. Major findings are as follows. Studies on students` academic persistence and withdrawal can explain the causes and results of the student retention and play an important role in establishing student retention strategies, which would actually be adopted at vocational colleges. Research models on students` academic persistence and withdrawal developed by American researchers can shed light on developing research models which could be applied to Korean context. Studies on students` retention including academic persistence and withdrawal need to focus on utilizing such variablis as student, vocational college, and interaction between or among these factors. Also, what is more important is to emphasize longitudinal and interactive aspects of students` academic persistence and withdrawal. From the point of applicability, outcomes of studies in the United States has both possibilities and limitations. What is needed is to distinguish between the characteristics of students and institutional environments of community colleges in the United States and those of vocational colleges in Korea.
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