University student desertion and graduation: an application of survival models

Abstract

The retention of students in university as well as the successful completion of their studies is of interest not only for higher education institutions (HEI), but also for society as a whole, because of its many implications. This work aims to identify when it is more probable that a student will abandon university or graduate from it, and which are the individual and academic features most related to the duration and risk of each event. The data used correspond to a cohort of students from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana de Cali, in Colombia. The estimation of survival models in discrete time leads to the conclusion that desertion is more influenced by academic-type variables, whereas both personal and academic features have an influence on graduation.