Why do Students Leave?
Most students enroll in your institution to further their education and improve their lives. In your opinion why do students withdraw from your institution before graduating?
The time requirement. As part of the DOE regulations, a student must complete two hours of homework, we call it out-of-class activites, for every credit hour a course is worth. Most of our students are single parents and/or work a full-time job. When you have to committ 40 hours or more to school, it is hard to maintain a full-time job on top of that.
Rachael,
While I fully understand the plight of the student, how can schools help them overcome these obstacles? I would encourage participants to share their best practices in student services.
Cindy Bryant
Rachael,
Students at my institution face similar challenges with the required homework and work and family responsibilities. They struggle to fit in their school work.
We try to alleviate this by stressing the time commitment during the Admissions process and orientation. We discuss ways to help the students manage their time and provide tools to help them map it out visually.
In my opinion most students withdraw from our institution before graduating is usually because of time. Many students feel that can utilize their time better by working, or being with their family. Students that withdraw state that they must have a job to keep the lights on, and if it is a choice between the lights on, and school, the answer is lights on for their situation.
Crystal,
Thank you for your response. Have you thought of ways to help students avoid making having to make this decision?
Cindy Bryant
A variety of reasons:
1. Quality of instructors
2. Time commitment vs. real life
3. They feel they are not getting enough for their investment
4. Personal reasons
5. Interests change
6. Financial aid is not what they expected
Admission reps don't delve into why they are making a decision to go to college. If they ask more questions about what hurdels they might have to over come while they are a student. What could they be dealing with right now. Is this why they are making this choice. Reps and other departments need to make students know the college has they're best interest at heart.
One of the most common reasons for withdrawal from school relates to expectations. Admissions Representatives may not stress the rigor of the program (both for academics and attendance) or the student avoids asking the questions about conditions most related to their areas of weakness. With incomplete or inaccurate expectations, these students get into the first quarter of school and struggle. Failure tends to beget failure, so students stop giving their full commitment and eventually stop attending.
Students leave schools because their expectations are not being met, or that the instruction is not exciting. Many students do have outside obstacles, but when their expectations are not being met, they are more likely to leave when an outside obstacles pops up.
There are several reasons that students leave before graduation. One reason is that life happens requiring students to leave school to attend to family emergencies including supporting the family. Another reason is that the students expectation were not clearly defined by admissions representatives. Some students are steered into programs that they do not want. Sometimes the student are in classrooms that do not engage them, so they get bored. Mostly, the student was not prepared for the school committment.
Tearee,
Thank you for providing a solid response to the question. Your assessment covers four critical areas that the program integrity rules should be able to impact in a positive manner.
Cindy Bryant
Linda,
Beginning in admissions the expectations must be clearly outlined. The faculty has the responsibility to meet those expectations. These two variables help create value for the student, if they can not find value in their education (or anything in life) it is easy to walk away.
Cindy Bryant
I think that many times students simply have problems that come into their lives that conflict with the ability to attend schools. It could be child care, health issues, loss of employment, or even stress in general. I think that many of these issues are temporary and that once resolved students can come back to school but often times these problems are issues that the student doesn't manage before coming into school and they realize it is too late. We all fall into these traps- the student needs to realize that school is a commitment and needs to get their life in order to maintain the commitment as well as prepare for future issues so that they can stay in school in order to finish their degree.
As others have stated, I think the primary reason that students withdraw is that expectations, reasonable or not, are not being met.
Unfortunately, expectations are sometimes unrealistic. This may come about because the institution and/or its staff improperly set expectations that a student expects will meet his or her needs, when the reality is markedly different. This could also be true of the student, who enrolls with unrealistic expectations of what the school can reasonably provide. Both sides have a responsibility to establish a realistic understanding both of what is expected of the other and what is necessary for academic success.
I also think expectations change over time. A student's life may be drastically different at a future time and what meets his or her needs at the time of enrollment may no longer align with an institution's requirements or expectations.
Students leave because of alot of factors, the course was not what they expected,the work that it takes to finnish the course was to hard for them.
Most of the time students leave the program before graduating because they are bored. Why should they sit in a class and be bored and have to follow rules when they could just as easily sit at home and be bored and not have to follow school rules? Instructors need to be positive and upbeat with new challenges every day to keep students excited about their education.
In my opinion students withdraw because the teacher/school is no meeting their expectations or the instructor is not making a connection with their students, when your happy with the school or teacher, no matter how many problems you have you will always make it work with the school or teacher
Sherree,
Thanks for participating in the forum. Generally, students will terminate from school because of those very reasons. How can this be avoided?
Cindy Bryant
Patricia,
Thank you for sharing your opinion. What are your thoughts on students leaving because admissions fails to set the proper expectations?
Cindy Bryant
