A new policy paper looks at continuation rates in UK higher education
Today in a Higher Education Policy Institute report, its director Nick Hillman gives his own take on student progression—whether a learner successfully completes a year of study and moves on to the next, and also known in the parlance as the ‘dropout rate’.
It is an issue that ought to be of interest to the Student Loans Company and its government sponsor, the Department for Education, given that non-completing students with tuition and maintenance loans are still expected to pay them back.
First, the Hepi director suggests that the definition of progression is not straightforward. It’s not just a case of someone enrolling on a course and then either finishing it or not.
There are all sorts of variations of non-completion, from leaving in the first few weeks to being awarded a lower qualification after three years of study. Then there are course and institutional transfers, as well as completing outside the timeframe—anyone who has sat through a few exam board meetings knows the variety is infinite.
Hillman also says that the aim can never be a non-continuation rate of zero. That is just impossible given the sheer volume of complex humanity passing through the higher education system.
But progression rates are now part of the Office for Students’ quality metrics. Universities are being keenly observed when it comes to dropout rates, with higher non-progression considered a sign of a ‘low-quality course’ in England.
There is, however, no UK-wide dataset on progression, Hillman says. With devolution have come different targets and attitudes to dropout rates: “It has been left to each part of the UK to produce their own numbers and, as this has occurred neither coherently nor consistently, comparisons between different parts of the UK as well as historical comparisons are extremely hard,” writes the Hepi boss.
That said, Hepi has tried to cobble the data together, with a previous report from the policy think tank on progression, written during the pandemic, noting “that the UK had the lowest non-continuation rate in the developed world, as measured by the OECD”. That is in part down to the relative brevity of degrees in the UK as well as the culture of full-time undergraduate study.
Hillman also explains it by pointing to “the historic levels of academic selection at the point of entry to higher education”. So much for too many people going to university.
Dropout? Tune in!
The big picture in Hepi’s progression data is that dropout rates fell during the Covid years, grew again immediately afterwards and are now falling again, but not back to the levels of the pandemic, when sitting in a Zoom lecture was the most exciting thing a 19-year-old could do in their pyjamas at two in the afternoon.
Of course, progressing through university very much depends on one’s socioeconomic circumstances. It will surprise no one when Hepi suggests that “those more likely to drop out include mature students, male students, Black students, students previously entitled to free school meals and disabled students”.
The inclusion of male students there, irrespective of class, might raise an eyebrow somewhere in Sanctuary Buildings but will not be a shock to anyone who teaches undergraduate students. Young male socialisation for the Covid generation is particularly tricky.
Within each of these characteristics, there are myriad stories and experiences as to why students are unable to continue or complete their studies. It is seldom the result of a lack of academic ability—that issue should have been settled at the point of entry.
It would not be surprising to see a future Hepi report on progression that fully records the effects of the cost of living crisis, showing a significant impact on dropout rates. As Hillman, a former adviser to the coalition government, puts it: “The factors affecting dropout rates make the government’s demand that we should have the same high expectations for all students, regardless of background or circumstances, unfeasible—especially in a constrained funding environment.”
In other words, the failure of maintenance support in England to keep pace with inflation will undoubtedly impact student progression. Only ministers in denial about the value of maintenance loans could pretend otherwise.
Any lecturer will tell you that the big reason students are not turning up to class, which is often a precursor to dropping out, is because they all have jobs. This might be good news for the post-Brexit, immigrant-lite economy, but it ought to be a major concern for universities and the Office for Students.
As Hillman persuasively suggests: “If the government’s flagship higher education policy, the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, is to be a success, there will need to be a new approach to non-continuation, as the LLE is based on the idea that people should be encouraged to access higher education in small chunks throughout their adult lives.” There would seem to very little point in the Office for Students assessing lifelong learning providers against a B3 registration condition, which measures continuation, completion and progression after study.
Having diagnosed an important area for policy and institutional analysis, some of the recommendations for action in the Hepi report are a little underwhelming: “better information for applicants”, “clever use of big data” and “structured exit interviews”, all of which sound a bit like a sticking plaster.
More practically, Hillman suggests “making greater use of staging qualifications, making it easier for students who do not complete their whole original target qualification to obtain some academic credits, which can then be used in the labour market or upon returning to study”. This tends to happen by default at the moment, but a full implementation of the LLE ought to formalise it in a more helpful way—not that anyone in government or universities seems to be doing that work right now.
The quickest and most effective win on dropout rates, as Hepi says, will surely come by “reversing the recent declines in the real value of maintenance support”. It would be interesting to see how increases in student support in the devolved nations have affected progression rates compared with England, where student maintenance has been neglected.
Hepi exists to insert nuance into the higher education policy debate. Today’s report reminds us—whether you are an under-pressure minister or a cash-strapped vice-chancellor—that there is no point beating up academic staff over dropout rates, which are the consequence of complex interlocking factors.
Hillman concludes: “The UK’s problem is not high dropout rates across the entire higher education sector. It is the relatively low attendance rate in the compulsory stage of education since the pandemic lessened, insufficient support for subdegree provision, high dropout rates among a minority of institutions, courses and students (including degree apprenticeships) and people being unable to make the most of their student experience because they have not got enough money and have to undertake a high number of hours of paid work—even during termtime when their studies should be their main priority.”
To coin a phrase, do you agree with Nick?
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