Never Give up on the Good Times: Student Attrition in the UK*

Abstract

The determinants of students' propensity to drop out of university are analysed using individual records of all students passing through the central applications process in 1993. The data set comprises about 100,000 individuals and allows a much more thorough analysis of student wastage than has been possible in the past. The main reasons for attrition, academic failure ('involuntary' attrition) and 'voluntary' dropout, are modelled. The results highlight, inter alia, the importance of matching and peer group effects, both of which have been found to be important determinants of student outcomes in the US but which have been subject to little empirical scrutiny for the UK.

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“…Earlier literature finds that the decision to drop out of a university is related to numerous background factors, such as academic preparedness and ability (e.g., Montmarquette, Mahseredjian and Houle, 2001;Arulampalam Naylor and Smith, 2004;Johnes and McNabb, 2004;Belloc, Maruotti and Petrella, 2010); family backgrounds (e.g., Lassibille and Gomez, 2008;Vignoles and Powdthavee, 2009;Gury, 2011;Aina, 2013); regional labour markets (e.g., Di Pietro, 2006) and working while studying or financial aid (e.g., . Nevertheless, existing empirical literature offers little evidence on how individuals succeed after they dropout from a university.…”

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“…Not including this variable would suggest the model is misspecifi ed, as previous research has shown that peer effects are a vital variable in modelling student non-completion (e.g. in Johnes and McNabb, 2004). Furthermore, Sacerdote (2001) argues that peer effects might be even more important determinants of higher education outcomes than institutional quality.…”

“…Family characteristics (F) include parents' educational qualifi cations where this variable serves as a proxy for socio-economic background. A hypothesis here is that students whose parents are more highly educated are less likely to leave HE and some evidence of this effect can be found in Ermish and Francesconi (2001), Johnes and McNabb (2004), Black et al (2005), Ishitani (2006), Ortiz and Dehon (2008), and Stratton et al (2008).…”

“…The application of the SIM model was central to a number of studies (Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991;Johnes and McNabb, 2004), and most of these studies supported the validity of the major variables in the model. However, none of the research papers employed the whole range of explanatory variables that Tinto (1993) hypothesised about, nor did they examine their salient features.…”

“…Another related study for UK HE is that by Johnes and McNabb (2004) who investigate student non-completion in 1993. Disaggregating the data to the level of the individual full-time student and matching it with institutional information, the authors were able to distinguish between the two types of non-completion, voluntary and involuntary, and include it in their model.…”