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

We analyze the factors influencing dropout, defined as not enrolling in the second year of the three years bachelor programs at the University of Trieste. We consider 23,333 undergraduate students available from the University of Trieste records and enrolled in the first year from 2003 to 2010. The probability of dropout is modeled assessing the impact of individual and university characteristics and job placement, including their interactions. Our estimates highlight that all these dimensions are influencing the outcome. With respect to the existing literature we aim at exploring a wider set of possible covariates. We employ the random lasso procedure in order to keep into account the uncertainty due to model selection, which is substantial because of the relatively high number of potential explanatory variables involved. We find, among the other results, that exists a positive effect on the probability of retention of working in the second year of the bachelor program and a negative effect on dropout.