Recruiting students into higher education institutions and specifically Colleges of Agriculture does not directly translate to an increase in degrees granted. There is insufficient work done on the retention of students in colleges of agriculture. In order to sustain the  agricultural workforce, we must not only invest in recruiting students to Colleges of Agriculture, we must also understand why students are leaving Colleges of Agriculture prior to completing their degrees to aid in facilitating their completion process. Using Tinto’s Model of Institutional Departure, this study explores the factors that contribute to a student’s decision to drop out of a four year, higher education agricultural degree program and how they make meaning of their experiences. Guiding this research are the following questions: 1) How did experiences within the individual’s formal and informal academic and social systems lead to dropout and 2) How did interactions from external communities contribute to the student’s decision to drop out? For this phenomenological study the researcher is collecting data through in person, semi-structured interviews. The implications of this research are understanding why students chose to withdraw from colleges of agriculture and what these colleges can do, if anything, to provide more support to students to facilitate completion of degrees.