Beyond Retention Rates: Exit Surveys Anyone?
Gemma Cadby, Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (ACSES)
Over the past 7 years, the retention rate of domestic undergraduate students has decreased by 0.73%. Across all Table A institutions, the retention rate was 84.3% in 2016, increased to 85.7% in 2019, and decreased to 83.5% in 2022. Of the 38 Table A institutions, 26 experienced a decrease in overall retention rates.
Interestingly, students from remote areas and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students exhibited the greatest variability in retention changes in the past 7 years. At one institution, the retention rate of students from remote areas decreased by 44 percentage points, while another institution saw a 22 percentage point decrease in the retention rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Other institutions again reported increases of approximately 15 percentage points in the retention rates of these student groups. (For further details, please see ACSES’s recently released retention report – Retention rates in Australian higher education – and the ACSES Interactive Data Tool).
The Lack of Data on Why Students Leave
Given the decline in retention rates, it is perhaps surprising that there are only limited data on why students leave higher education without completing their degrees. Understanding these reasons is particularly important for students from equity backgrounds. By gaining deeper insight into the reasons why students are leaving, institutions and policymakers can develop and test more targeted policies and support measures to improve retention and student success – both at the institutional and sector level.
Survivorship Bias in the QILT Student Experience Survey
The QILT Student Experience Survey (SES) asks, ‘During <SURVEYYEAR>, have you seriously considered leaving <YOUR INSTITUTION>?’, and provides a list of possible reasons, allowing students to select more than one. But this survey only captures responses from students who remain enrolled – those who have ‘survived’ in the system.
For instance, if the primary reason for students leaving was the inability to find parking on campus, and students withdrew immediately because of it, this reason would not appear in the QILT SES data because those students would no longer be present to answer the survey.
In 2023, the top individual reasons given by undergraduate students for considering leaving university were stress (45%), mental health (44%) and financial difficulties (40%). However, if an effective support system were in place to address student stress, stress might still rank as the top reason for considering leaving, but it would not be the primary cause of actually leaving.
This is an example of survivorship bias. One famous example comes from World War II, where mathematician Abraham Wald and his Columbia University colleagues examined aircraft returning from missions (see illustration). They noticed that certain areas of the planes had more damage than others. Initially, it seemed logical to reinforce the most damaged areas. However, they recommended the opposite – reinforce the areas with little to no damage. The reason? Because planes hit in those spots never made it back. Similarly, when we only look at the reasons students who stay enrolled give for considering leaving, we miss out on the reasons that students who actually left would give – but never had the chance to share.
Illustration of hypothetical damage pattern on a WW2 bomber. Image by McGeddon based on a Lockheed PV-1 Ventura drawing (2016), vector file by Martin Grandjean (2021).
Exit Surveys as a Solution?
The 2017, the Higher Education Standards Panel (HESP) report, Improving retention, completion and success in higher education, endorsed the use of exit surveys. It recommended that ‘Every institution should have its own comprehensive student-centred retention strategy… These strategies could include institutional retention benchmarks and, as appropriate, processes for entry and exit interviews…’ (Recommendation 5).
Despite this recommendation, it is unclear how many higher education institutions currently conduct exit surveys. Anecdotal evidence suggests they are uncommon and, even when they do exist, it is difficult to locate where the survey data sits within an institution. Interestingly, a Google search for ‘university exit surveys’ shows many more hits for staff exit surveys, rather than student exit surveys.
The Case for a Sector-Level Survey of Part-Completers
A limitation with institution-specific exit surveys is that they typically capture reasons for leaving a particular institution, rather than the higher education system as a whole. A sector-wide survey could address this issue by the tracking of students across institutions, with surveys restricted only to those students who have left the system entirely (i.e., those who haven’t transferred elsewhere).
QILT performs the annual Graduate Outcomes Survey but, as the name suggests, only graduates are asked to complete this survey. There is currently no survey of higher education part-completers. The National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) has a ‘VET student outcomes 2024’ survey, which surveys completers and part-completers. In 2024, approximately 120,000 qualification part-completers were invited to take part in the survey, and 25% completed the survey. There is potential for higher education to have a similar survey.
Considering student survey fatigue and the fact that students who have left may be less likely to respond to surveys, if only one question could be asked, it might be:
“Why did you leave your university studies?”
The possible response options could be the same as the QILT SES question for ‘considered leaving’. This would allow us to see whether the reasons for considering leaving are largely consistent with the reasons for actually leaving, at an equity group, institution, and system level.
Being a student these days is tough. With the cost-of-living crisis and students juggling more responsibilities than ever, it’s no surprise some students leave higher education without completing their study. But if we only listen to those who stay, we are missing an important piece of the puzzle. A national survey of part-completers could help us understand why students leave and help us build better support systems so that more students can graduate and achieve their potential.
Associate Professor Gemma Cadby is Director of the Data Program at the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (ACSES).