Article Green Open Access 2016

Why Do Students Leave Education Early? Theory and Evidence on High School Dropout Rates

CS
Cabus, Sofie Josefina
 DW
de Witte, Kristof
Journal of Forecasting
Journal · Vol. 35 · Issue 8 · pp. 690-702
Abstract

This paper contributes to the growing literature on school dropout by proposing and empirically testing a theoretical framework on the enrollment decision of youngsters in secondary education. The model relates school dropout to time preferences, motivation, opportunity costs and policy measures. It is empirically tested on longitudinal data of about 4000 Dutch vocational students. We evaluate the enrollment decision of students for (i) different intensity levels of dropout prevention policy, and for (ii) different levels of economic development. The results indicate that the model can accurately predict actual enrollment rates over the period 2000–2013. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. © © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords

Author Keywords

Secondary Education dropout prevention economic modeling forecasting

Index Keywords

Education computing Students Higher School Theoretical framework secondary education Policy measures Longitudinal data Copyrights Dropout prevention Economic models Intensity levels Opportunity costs Time preferences
Author Affiliations
Top Institute for Evidence Based Education Research, Universiteit Maastricht, Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands, Business, KU Leuven, Leuven, Vlaams-Brabant, Belgium
Top Institute for Evidence Based Education Research, Universiteit Maastricht, Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Funding & Acknowledgements
No funding information
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