Never Give up on the Good Times: Student Attrition in the UK*
| Published date | 01 February 2004 |
| Date | 01 February 2004 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0084.2004.00068.x |
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Never Give up on the Good Times: Student
Attrition in the UK*
Geraint Johnesand Robert McNabbà
Department of Economics, The Management School, Lancaster University,
Lancaster LA1 4YX, UK (e-mail: g.johnes@lancs.ac.uk)
àCardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK
(e-mail: mcnabb@cf.ac.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.
I. Introduction
The expansion of higher education in the UK over the last decade has been
accompanied by an increase in the rate at which students drop out of
university without completing the courses for which they were initially
registered. Consistent statistical evidence is difficult to come by, but it would
appear that the dropout rate has risen from about 13–16% in the late 1970s
*The authors are indebted to Richard Jones for excellent research assistance, and to anonymous
referees for helpful comments on an earlier draft.
JEL Classification numbers: J24, I2.
OXFORD BULLETIN OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS, 66, 1 (2004) 0305-9049
23
Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2004. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
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