ABSTRACT

This paper examines the role of sociodemographic characteristics on non-traditional mature freshmen higher education dropout rates. One of Chile’s largest higher education institutions, which has an important number of mature students from more deprived social sectors, was used as a case study. A quantitative methodology was applied, based on the estimation of logistic regression models, where freshmen dropout rates were defined as the dependent variable and three types of independent variable were considered: family/demographic conditions, socio-economic situation and institutional structures. The results indicate that students who are parents, have a job, are not the heads of their households, are enrolled in longer programmes and who attended adult high school are more likely to drop out of higher education during their first year of study. Suggestions for institutional practices to better integrate mature students into higher education are discussed.

摘要

本文考察了社会人口统计学特征对非传统成熟新生高等教育辍学率的影响。案例研究以智利最大的高等教育机构之一为例，该机构拥有大量来自较贫困社会阶层的成熟学生。基于对数回归模型的估计，采用了定量方法，其中新生辍学率定义为因变量，考虑了三种自变量：家庭/人口环境，社会经济状况和体制结构。结果表明，作为父母，有工作，不是户主的学生，参加了较长时间的课程，并且就读成人高中的学生在学习的第一年中更有可能辍学。