Friday, March 29

The price of tuition and the particular economic situation, main reasons for university dropout


Economic circumstances are the main factor when it comes to continuing to study at the University or leaving studies halfway. A report from the Ministry of Universities presented this Tuesday calculates that 11% of undergraduate students drop out before completing it, a figure significantly lower than that offered in the latest reports from the ministry itself, in which the overall dropout rate was 21% for the university system as a whole and 14.7% for face-to-face universities and not counting those who change degrees. Counting them, the percentage of dropouts rises to affect more than one in four students: 27% of them left the degree or changed.

How to deal with college dropout

Know more

The text points out that previous academic performance, the cost of enrollment for the degree completed, the age of the student and their socioeconomic origin and origin are the factors that most determine whether or not to continue on campus. “The existence of these social, economic and cultural disadvantages means that they cannot afford not to perform well at university,” says the text, prepared by María Fernández Mellizo-Soto, sociologist and professor at the Faculty of Education at the University Complutense of Madrid. Approximately half of those who leave university do so after or during the first year.

The expert has commented during the presentation of the report that a possible solution to mitigate the economic problems that the University produces for some students is to eliminate the economic penalty that implies repeating a subject. The price of second and third registrations, and beyond, skyrockets in college.

The Minister of Universities, Joan Subirats, has valued the importance of the report in that it will allow to find out “if the abandonment of this country differs from that of others, which could be a significant variable, and on the other hand the differences between universities or within them the type of studies. The report responds to the minister: the data is comparable to that of neighboring countries and the larger the university, the more likely the university student is to drop out. What is not so related is the ownership of the center: “Those who study at public universities are not more likely to drop out than students at private universities. It can even be said that students with average performance are more likely to drop out of private universities than public ones”, the report describes. In the regional approach, students from the islands, both Canary and Balearic, also have more options to drop out.

A small cohort

To prepare the report, the evolution of the cohort of students who entered the University in the 2015-2016 academic year has been followed, but the sample has been limited to face-to-face students, under 30 years of age and of Spanish nationality because, according to the author, studying online is very different and distorts the statistics because the cases are very different for foreigners or distance students.

Someone is considered to have dropped out of school when they have done so during the first three years of the degree. For the entire university population, the dropout rate rises from 11% to 13%. According to the ministry, both data are comparable with those of the European neighbors.

The ministry report does not enter to quantify the cost for the State, or families, the abandonment of studies. Yes, the Valencian Institute of Economic Research (IVIE) and the BBVA Foundation did it in one of its latest editions of the URanking: abandonment costs Spain some 680 million euros per year, a figure that rises to almost one billion if the 296 that the families dedicated to paying their part of the tuition, although this calculation was made for a much higher percentage of people who drop out because it included those who changed grades, something that the ministry has not done because it considers that it grabs the literal meaning of “abandonment”. However, changing studies does have that cost for families and the state, in time in the first case and in money in both.

More scholarships and cheaper fees

The Ministry of Universities highlights in the text the measures it has taken to reduce dropouts from university studies, and stresses that they have not had an effect on the study presented because they have been applied after the cohort of students analyzed left the campus, which focus on two lines of action.

On the one hand, an agreement was reached with the autonomous communities to reduce and standardize the prices of university fees among them. As a result of that pact and a later one, ten communities have to lower the price of degrees and all except Asturias the price of master’s degrees.

On the other, explains Universities, the scholarship system has been changed to widen it above all from below, among the most disadvantaged students, a measure that ended up translating into twice the number of people who previously received the highest possible amount. This reform has been completed this course with the advancement of the usual call for scholarships, which happens this month of March so that it is resolved before the course begins and families know in advance if they are going to receive a grant or not.



www.eldiario.es