Part Time Uni Students Are More Likely to Drop Out, Study Says

A Grattan Institute study of university dropouts released today has found that a major driver of incomplete degrees is part time study; even more so than failing certain papers or studying online.

The research discovered that approximately 20 percent of new university students are more likely to drop out, and among that cohort only four percent took enough units to deem them a full time student. Fifty percent of the high-risk group took only three to four papers in their first year, and 30 percent took two or fewer.

A full time load is considered eight units.

“People believe that part-time is the solution because they are taking fewer subjects and they’ve got time to work and time to look after their family,” Andrew Norton, the Grattan Institute’s higher education director, told Fairfax.

“In practice it’s very hard to do that. There are limited hours in the day, probably you’re doing your study late at night when you’re already very tired, and as a result many people find they can’t manage it all and drop out.”

Around 50,000 students who start university in 2018 won’t finish their degrees, the report estimates. It recommends including tailored information for students about the likelihood of finishing a degree, and how to mitigate the risks of dropping out, on government student website Quality Indicators for Teaching and Learning.

“With better advice, some prospective part-time students may opt to study full-time,” the report’s authors write. “Some prospective university students would take a vocational education course instead. Some may not study at all, but look for a job instead.”

On average, it continues, students pay $12,000 for their incomplete course. What’s more, “They miss out on the additional lifetime earnings that university graduates typically receive. The time they spent at university could have been used working or studying at TAFE. And the online survey shows that most people who drop out feel they have let themselves or others down.”

However, the report does note that not all is lost, even if a degree is discarded: A Grattan Institute online survey of students who dropped out revealed that “many found their course interesting, learned useful skills and made new friends. More than 40 per cent said they would enrol again if they had their time over.”