#3: Why Soft Skills Are the Secret to Student Retention

Here’s a bold statement I stand by:

Over the past decade, I’ve worked with hundreds of students—from middle school to college to young professionals—and the through line is clear:

Soft skills build resilience. And resilience drives retention.

Research continues to affirm that emotional readiness, peer connection, and personal support are just as important to student success as academic ability.

So what can your campus do?

1. Prioritize Early & Ongoing Engagement

• Make orientation more than logistics. Make it about community.

• Add life skills into your first-year experience programs.

• Train peer mentors to model and teach these soft skills.

2. Reframe Advising as Relationship-Based

• Build systems for proactive, personalized check-ins.

• Flag students at risk not just by grades, but by emotional indicators.

• Empower advisors with tools in communication, empathy, and boundary-setting.

3. Invest in Faculty & Staff Development

• Train professors in relational leadership.

• Coach your student life teams to recognize soft skill gaps.

• Invite collaboration across departments for holistic student care.

If you’re ready to go deeper, I invite you to join me inside Equip & Empower: A Coaching Lab for Student Services. It’s a hands-on group program that helps you bring soft skills training to life on your campus.

Retention is more than academics. It’s people work—and that work starts with you.