Almost a million Australians have left university without finishing their degree, but a survey by the Grattan Institute found most still got something from the experience.<\/p>\n
On the job front almost a third say their stint at university helped them clarify their career goals, while almost half say they learnt useful skills.<\/p>\n
More than half simply found the experience interesting while just one in five say they got nothing from the experience.<\/p>\n
But while there are benefits, leaving university isn’t cheap.<\/p>\n
The average drop out student leaves with $12,000 of debt, while almost one in 10 walk away with debts of $30,000 or more.<\/p>\n
“Without their degree, students may miss out on a career they wanted, and the additional lifetime earnings that, on average, graduates receive,” the study also found.<\/p>\n
To help address the cost issue associated with dropping out, the Grattan Institute has recommended universities more actively remind students about the census dates – the final day they drop out of their courses without paying fees, or that disengaged students be removed from the roll before the second semester.<\/p>\n
As a more drastic approach the institute has suggested the government trial an opt-in approach to charging students rather than relying on students to opt out of their courses.<\/p>\n
Students should also be advised about their risk of dropping out, particularly where there are identifiable factors like the student studying part-time.<\/p>\n
Only 20 per cent of students enrolled part-time complete their degrees within eight years, while a further nine per cent are still enrolled.<\/p>\n
In comparison, 80 per cent of full-time students have completed their degree at that point.<\/p>\n
AAP<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" That equates to around 53,000 students who will in effect drop out of university.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[118,117],"class_list":["post-559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-career-goals","tag-university"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.careerone.com.au\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.careerone.com.au\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.careerone.com.au\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.careerone.com.au\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.careerone.com.au\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.careerone.com.au\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":562,"href":"https:\/\/www.careerone.com.au\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559\/revisions\/562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.careerone.com.au\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.careerone.com.au\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.careerone.com.au\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.careerone.com.au\/career-advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}