Did the Supe give an explanation for the trend?
They were using the slide to demonstrate that if you really want to make it through the Academy these days there are many, many resources available from professors to senior officers to chaplains that will help you. What I took away from this was that considering the taxpayer investment in every plebe, that the administration was going to trust the admissions vetting process and make an real effort to keep those that also make a real effort.
IMHO one of the other reasons for less attrition is that they are able to do a better job of selecting the correct and highest caliber kids. Plus they do a better job of attempting to make sure that everyone is informed and motivated about what they are getting into. The applicant pool keeps getting larger every year and the class sizes are getting smaller. This gives the academies an opportunity to be more selective and have higher admissions standards, from which a hypothesis could be drawn that less people will fail out, opt out, or be driven out. Seriously, I don’t think that they are lowering the standards to keep retention up. The class of 2017 was selected by pretty rigorous methodology. Just compare the class profiles (I found my class’s recently while digging through old photos).
Applicants (1990 -14,282) (2017-17,819)
Offers (1990 -1,692) (2017-1,408)
Admitted (1990 -1,363) (2017-1,200)
SAT (1990 avg M-659 V-582) (2017 2nd & 3rd quartiles M 620-700 V 580-670)