Higher education is an educational level presenting important opportunities for academic and social improvement of the students, economic developments of community and country, and scientific research and developments. Economic gains and career development of individual (Ishitani, 2006) are the processes in higher education institutions. On the other hand, higher education institutions focus on two important missions: teaching and research. Teaching-oriented mission aims to enrich basic knowledge and skills of the students while research-oriented mission aims to form an effective environment for research and development activities. Student is placed at the centre for both situations and generates great potential for higher education. Usage of higher education potential at the most beneficial way for all dimensions gains importance. Student retention serves usage of this potential. In this aspect, student retention in higher education should be evaluated as principal provision. Student retention can be defined ad timely graduation, completion of graduation, persistence in education, or attendance of enrolment (Wild & Ebbers, 2002). The fact that academic and social integration of the students is the key factor was revealed by Tinto’s (1975) model of dropout. In that model, the author proved the students integrated with academic and social system of university continued education whereas the students not integrated with academic and social system of university gave up education. This model and finding were also validated from many researchers (Berger & Milem, 1999; Cabrera, Nora, & Castaneda; 1993; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1983). In conclusion, academic and social integration is valuable for higher education. Relation of student retention with academic and social integration (Beil, Reisen, Zea, & Caplan, 2000; Borglum & Kubala, 2000; Gerdes & Mallinckrodt, 1994), significance of first-year experience of students on student retention (Ishitani, 2016; Kairamo, 2012; Long, Ferrier, & Heagney, 2006; Yorke & Thomas, 2003), and activities improving student retention (Bean & Eaton, 2002; Gardner, 2008; Mooring, 2016) are the topics frequently studies in the literature. Higher education institutions generally implement orientation activities at the beginning of the semester and in a single day by limiting campus climate and regional culture. For this reason, orientation is not preferred by most of the students so that benefits of the orientation decrease. The current study will be an attempt to fill gap in both literature review and practice by integrating orientation programs with the content of the course. Moreover, the study will form a base for the institutions and stakeholders by removing orientation limitations and developing adaptation integrated curriculums.The research question of the current study is based on effect of student retention program on academic and social integration of the first-year students in higher education. Main purpose of the study is to examine the effect of student retention program on the academic and social integration of the students. Considering this main purpose, the targets are to develop student retention program, to conduct experimental study in an effective way, and to form bases of new higher education curriculums. A quasi experimental design was used. There was no intervention for students in the control group while students in the experiment group were trained through “student retention program”. Population of the study consisted of 288 first-year students in Faculty of Education in a small Anatolian province. The sample was selected non randomly by matching participants in terms of gender and score of university entrance exam. Sixty-one students were assigned to control group while another 61 students were assigned to experimental group. Control group was taught by usual curriculum whereas experimental group was taught by developed curriculum based on student retention program. This program included academic mentorship and socialization activities. Institutional Integration Scale including 24 items in four dimensions was used in the study to assess levels of the students in terms of academic and social integration. In order to analyze differentiation between pre-test and post-test, ANOVA was run in a statistical analysis package. The experiment was conducted in spring semester of 2019-2020.