Educational- and occupational careers of tertiary education drop-outs. A longitundinal analysis with the NEPS-Erwachsenenpanel
Final Report Abstract
In recent years, the high rates of higher education dropout have raised attention of education research and policy makers in Germany. However, due to data privacy legislation, it remains challenging to obtain information about the individual progress of students through higher education and the destinations of non-completers. With conventional administrative or cross-sectional data, it is not possible to distinguish non-completion from dropout, so that it mostly has to remain unclear if non-completers reach graduation elsewhere or if they enter vocational training or the labour market instead. This project uses the retrospective life course data of the NEPS starting cohort 6 to empirically disentangle non-completion and dropout of full-time students in higher education. Non-completion denotes students who enter higher education but do not complete the initially chosen program with a degree. These students however, may leave higher education (drop out), but they also may change the program or the institution and successfully graduate later. We examine the destinations of non-completers and dropouts as well as their labour market returns using longitudinal approaches. Our results show that conventional designs possibly are prone to overestimate dropout rates: More than half of all students that did not complete their initially chosen program, decide to re-enter or remain in higher education. The total dropout rate, taking all episodes in higher education into account, is approximately 15%. Our longitudinal analyses of destinations after dropout reveal that the permeability between vocational training and higher education is not unidirectional. Vocational training is a relevant absorber of higher education dropouts, but at the same time, vocational qualifications that were gained prior to higher education work as safety-net that buffers labour market risks of dropouts.
Publications
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Verbleibe und Berufsstatus von Studienabbrechern mit und ohne vor-tertiärer Berufsausbildung. Datenreport 2016, Schwerpunkt Studienabbrecher. Bonn: Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung, 409-415
Tieben, N. (2016):
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Causes and consequences of higher-education non-completion in Germany.
Scholten, M.
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Labour Market Outcomes of Higher-Education Dropouts in Germany, How formal Vocational Qualifications Shape Education-to-Work Transitions and Occupational Status. Mannheim: MZES Working Paper 168.
Scholten, M. and Tieben, N.
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Vocational qualification as safety net? Education to work transitions of higher education dropouts in Germany. Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training9/7, 1-17
Scholten, M. and Tieben, N.
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Non-completion, transfer, and dropout of traditional and “non-traditional” students in Germany. Research in Higher Education 61/1, 117-141
Tieben, N.
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Dropping out of Higher Education in Germany: Using Retrospective Life Course Data to Determine Dropout Rates and Destinations of Non-Completers. In Weinert, S., Blossfeld, G., & Blossfeld, H.-P. (eds.). Education, Competence Development and Career Trajectories: Analysing Data of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). Methodology of Educational Measurement and Assessment. Cham: Springer
Tieben, N.
