Are Students Dropping Out or Simply Dragging Out the College Experience? Persistence at the Six-Year Mark
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Leslie S. Stratton
und
James N. Wetzel
Abstract
Standard analyses of college outcomes look at six-year graduation rates, treating all non-graduates alike as “failures”. However, we find that 36% of non-graduates are still enrolled. Using micro-level data with rich information on demographic and academic background, we employ a multinomial logit model to distinguish among graduates, persisters, and dropouts six years following matriculation. We find that there are significant differences across these populations. Separate evidence indicates that as many as half of those persisting at the six-year mark will graduate within a few years. Thus, six-year graduation rates understate “success,” but future success is not the same for all groups. Holding academic background constant, reported graduation rates are lower for Hispanics because they are taking longer to graduate and lower for first-generation college students because they are dropping out. The most important factor is academic background, suggesting that increased financial aid is unlikely to substantially increase graduation rates.
Acknowledgments
This material is based upon work supported by the Association for Institutional Research, the National Center for Education Statistics, the National Science Foundation, and the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative, under Association for Institutional Research Grant Number RG10-128. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the above listed organizations.
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- 1
Initial enrollment probabilities are also lower for these population groups, though they have improved considerably.
- 2
The NCES requires sample size to be rounded to the nearest ten.
- 3
A handful of individuals are excluded, because age and other characteristics of interest are missing.
- 4
The NCES measure is reported in the Digest of Education Statistics (2010, Table 341) and reflects the six-year graduation rate for all degree seeking students beginning as full-time fall semester students at a four-year institution in 1996. Part-time students and those beginning in the spring term have lower six-year graduation rates. Further restricting our sample to exclude such students yields a graduation rate of 57.7%.
- 5
The marginal effects from the logit specification discussed above are calculated similarly. Simulated marginal effects calculated using the entire sample and changing one variable at a time yield substantially the same results.
- 6
More advanced high school math is also associated with more graduation, less non-enrollment, and little difference in the probability of continued enrollment, but only the marginal effect on non-enrollment is statistically significant.
- 7
Some institutions offering such a plan include the University of Illinois, UT Dallas, and George Washington University.
©2013 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin / Boston
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Masthead
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- Advances
- When Does Inter-School Competition Matter? Evidence from the Chilean “Voucher” System
- Investment, Dynamic Consistency and the Sectoral Regulator’s Objective
- Contributions
- Vertical Contracts and Mandatory Universal Distribution
- Ticket Pricing and Scalping: A Game Theoretical Approach
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- Effects of the Endogenous Scope of Preferentialism on International Goods Trade
- Fiscal Decentralization and Environmental Infrastructure in China
- Declining Equivalence Scales and Cost of Children: Evidence and Implications for Inequality Measurement
- Political Parties, Candidate Selection, and Quality of Government
- Professors’ Beauty, Ability, and Teaching Evaluations in Italy
- Pass-through of Per Unit and ad Valorem Consumption Taxes: Evidence from Alcoholic Beverages in France
- The Tuesday Advantage of Politicians Endorsed by American Newspapers
- Topics
- The Effects of Medicaid Earnings Limits on Earnings Growth among Poor Workers
- Opportunities Denied, Wages Diminished: Using Search Theory to Translate Audit-Pair Study Findings into Wage Differentials
- Horizontal Mergers, Firm Heterogeneity, and R&D Investments
- Product Differentiation and Consumer Surplus in the Microfinance Industry
- The Multitude of Alehouses: The Effects of Alcohol Outlet Density on Highway Safety
- Solving the Endogeneity Problem in Empirical Cost Functions: An Application to US Banks
- The Internet, News Consumption, and Political Attitudes – Evidence for Sweden
- A Cross-Cultural Real-Effort Experiment on Wage-Inequality Information and Performance
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