Doctoral Completion & Attrition September 2008

Attrition & Completion Graphs All Students

Full Campus Study Attrition No difference between demographic groups. GRE Verbal Scores positively related to attrition. No significant relationship found for GRE Quant or for GPA. Students who attended a top tier BA school and those with a prior graduate degree are less likely to drop out. Student faculty ratio is negatively related to dropout. Programs with a tradition of publishing with a lone author have higher attrition rates. Programs with a teaching requirement have higher drop out rates.

Full Campus Study Early v. Late Attrition Among dropouts, students with a foreign language requirement are more likely to dropout late. Programs with a tradition of sole authorship tend to produce students who drop out later. Differential impact of GRE Verbal between students enrolling with and without a prior graduate degree.

GRE Verbal & Prior Graduate Degree

CGS Activities Exit Survey CGS Incidents System 10 Year Attrition and Completion Reports By program By broad field by Gender and Ethnic Counts Detailed exit survey – 10 pages

Incidents Systems IT Problems 119 Reported Incidents to Date Reported Reasons: 22% Family 22% Health 19% Financial 25% Lost Interest Open Ended Comments Subsequent Enrollment Open Ended – Significant proportion of health reasons were mental health related Subsequent enrollment – Mental health cases tended not to return. Temporary health issues tended to return. Temporary family issues (taking care of parent) tended to return. Permanent family (child birth or spouse moving away tended not to return.