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Students in the lecture hall: One in four does not get a degree
Photo: Christoph Hardt / imago images/Future Image
Around a quarter of all students in Germany drop out: In 2020,
28 percent of all bachelor
students left the universities without a degree.
21 percent
dropped out of their
master’s degree
.
This is the result of the new 2022 study dropout study by the German Center for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW).
This means that the dropout rate is slightly higher than in the last survey two years ago.
After the first corona-related shutdowns at universities and colleges, the scientists led by study leader Ulrich Heublein had expected a more dramatic increase.
"The results show that the first few months of the corona pandemic did not lead to more people dropping out of their studies, despite the problematic study conditions," says Heublein, who headed the study.
more on the subject
Fourth corona wave at Germany's universities: Forgotten in front of the screenBy Armin Himmelrath, Katharina Hölter, Miriam Olbrisch and Sophia Schirmer
Beginning of the semester in presence at the University of Hamburg: Where is everyone? By Simon Schröder
Dissatisfied at the university: Four good reasons to drop out of your studiesA column by Tim Reichel
On the other hand, in recent years it has also not been possible to »push back the main reasons for dropping out of studies, such as the lack of a match between individual study requirements and the requirements at the beginning of the study«.
At
universities
, significantly more people completed their bachelor's degree unsuccessfully - 35 percent - than at the universities of applied sciences
(HAW)
, the former universities of applied sciences.
There only one or one in five gave up prematurely.
In math, science and humanities, half drop out
The dropout rate in the university bachelor's degree is particularly high in the
humanities
and in
mathematics
and
natural sciences
: half of the students gave up here prematurely.
The students did better in
law, economics and social sciences
.
Only 21 percent dropped out here.
In
teacher training courses
, only one or one in ten did not complete their bachelor's degree.
Similar trends can be observed at UAS: above-average dropouts in mathematics and natural sciences (39 percent) and low values in law, economics and social sciences (13 percent).
In the master's degree, which usually takes less time than the bachelor's degree, the dropout rate is significantly lower: 20 percent at the universities and 23 percent at the HAW.
Corona pandemic taken into account in the calculations
The researchers looked at which and how many students started their bachelor’s degree in the 2016/2017 winter semester and calculated them against the number of graduates in the 2020 class Shutdowns during the corona pandemic have to study a little longer.
For the Master's students, the calculations related to the start of their studies in 2018 and the 2020 graduation year. They used the official statistics for the 2020 graduating year as the basis for the data.
In the future, educational researchers will be able to create their statistics even more precisely.
Since 2017, the new Higher Education Statistics Act has allowed detailed surveys to be carried out on individual courses of study and educational biographies.
As soon as a sufficient amount of data has been fed into the statistics, the academic success of young people can be described even more precisely - and hopefully the reasons for dropping out can also be distilled from this.
olb