Every spring, deans across Korea receive thick binders from institutional research. Most pages never leave the mailroom. Our Jeju studio has spent nine years learning which retention signals actually change budget conversations — and which ones merely satisfy a template.
We start by separating voluntary withdrawal from academic dismissal. Mixing them paints a false cliff at mid-semester. Once split, the curve often shows a quiet plateau after week six that policy committees miss entirely.
The second panel tracks programme-level gaps between domestic and international cohorts. Accreditation reviewers now ask for this explicitly; we encode the comparison as paired bars rather than overlaid lines so colour-blind readers stay oriented.
The third panel is a simple table of interventions already funded — tutoring hours, advisor ratios — mapped against the departments where retention still lags. Deans tell us this panel earns the follow-up meeting.
Print these three on A3 landscape, brass-rule borders optional. Bring them to the council table before anyone opens a spreadsheet.