Job Opportunities and Academic Dropout: the case of the University of Trieste

In this paper we study the factors influencing dropout in the second year of the bachelor programs at the University of Trieste. We control for the different withdrawal causes. In doing so, we apply the Lasso method for the selection of the covariates determining the dropout event described in Tibshirani (1996). We use administrative data on 23,333 undergraduates students enrolled in three-years bachelor programs from 2003 to 2011 and perform a binomial GLM model with logistic link. Our aim is to improve the general understanding of the students’ withdrawing focusing on personal characteristics of students and on institutional aspects of the university. We demonstrate that a high secondary school final mark and a low individual students’ performance increase significantly the risk of dropping out, the same is true for the choice of a "weak" degree. In general, the low entry barriers permit to the students coming from lower socioeconomic background to limit dropout along the whole academic path. Our results reveal, also, that obtaining a job in the first year of study or being "old" or residing in the region, will increase the dropout probability. Thus, to promote degree completion and decreasing dropout and "parking time", universities should enlarge the tools provided to students in order to manage failure.