University dropouts on the rise

By Emily Contador-Kelsall
Around 33,000 first-year students are expected to drop out of university this year, according to a Think Education report.

The census date for first semester passed earlier this week on Tuesday March 31, marking the last opportunity for students to drop out without having to pay for the semester.

Gabi Lane, 19, dropped out of a University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) business degree last year in second semester and now studies at a private business school. She said dropping out of university was the best decision she ever made but did not regret her time at UTS.

“You need to experiment and find out what you like and what you don’t like. You’ll never know if you want to drop out if you don’t go to university, if you don’t try it,” she said.

“You’ll never be able to feel what university is like until you actually get there.”

Ms Lane dropped out after being unhappy and uninterested in her subjects.

Max Murphy, Education Vice-President of the UTS Students’ Association, was concerned by the estimated 33,000 dropouts and said tertiary education systems needed to be reformed to better prepare undergraduates for the “immense difference between high school and university”.

“Not all students at university are there because they enjoy writing extensive essays and getting overly involved in discussion in tutorials. They are there to get a degree so they can get a solid, well paying, meaningful job,” he said.

“It’s hard to really connect with the course content when a lot of students do not feel comfortable with the relatively well-off cohort that goes to university, particularly in some courses like law and communications.”

The reasons behind student dropouts vary, but unhappiness with classes and content, class size, financial hardship and poor course performance are common causes.

The Think Education survey of more than 1,000 Australians found 67 percent of people aged 25-29 wished they had spent more time thinking about their study or career choice after high school.

Peri Watson is currently completing her HSC at Rose Bay Secondary School and said she had spent between one and two years thinking about what university course she would like to do. She plans to take a gap year before studying interior design at university.

Ms Lane thought there should be better options available to prepare and inform undergraduates in their career and study choice.

“I went to my careers counsellor probably 12 times in two months,” she said.

“I was like, ‘I’m 18, I don’t know what I want to do’, but now I know I just want to be happy.”

Think Education reported that each year more than 13 percent of first-year students drop out.

According to Department of Education data, just over one million domestic and international students enrolled in higher education institutions in the first half of last year.

Ms Lane said the dropout rates were not a significant problem, as university could be a fun and valuable experience, even if students didn’t complete their degrees.

Ms Watson said the statistics were unsettling but expected in many ways.

“In some ways it surprises me because it takes a lot to get into the course you want and lots of people can’t get in [to their desired course] because others did better,” she said.

“But it also doesn’t surprise me because you don’t know if you’ll like a course until you do  and there isn’t any point continuing a course if you feel it is wasting time.”

While various university run programs are available to first-year students to help them adapt to the change in lifestyle and learning methods, Mr Murphy thinks universities undertake some actions that hinder undergraduates.

“Trimesters will be introduced [at UTS] in 2016 and that will dramatically compress the amount of course work in an already pressed workload and I really doubt that’d mean anything good for first year students who are struggling to keep up with university,” he said.