This research captured the voices of 578 current university students investigating whether they have considered leaving university without completing their studies, what caused them to consider leaving their studies, and explored the reasons that led them to stay. The majority of participants had considered leaving university without completing their course. Multiple factors contributed to this consideration, with family commitments, financial strain, time management, expected study load, and work commitments cited most frequently. Similarly, multiple factors influenced participants’ decision to stay at university, with students’ commitment to achieving personal and career goals, and social support received cited most frequently. Thus, for the majority of participants there were multiple factors that caused them to consider leaving university and there were multiple factors contributing to their decision to stay. This novel research contributes to the limited amount of literature that explores the reasons students stay at university despite experiencing multiple challenges.

这项研究收集了578名当前大学生的声音，调查他们是否考虑未完成学业而离开大学，是什么原因导致他们考虑离开学业，并探讨了导致他们留下来的原因。大多数参与者都考虑过不完成课程就离开大学。多种因素促成了这一考虑，其中家庭承诺，财务压力，时间管理，预期学习负荷和工作承诺是最常见的。同样，多种因素影响了参与者决定留校的决定，学生对实现个人和职业目标的承诺以及获得社会支持的频率最高。因此，对于大多数参与者而言，有多种因素导致他们考虑离开大学，并且有多种因素导致他们决定留下大学。这项新颖的研究为有限的文学作品做出了贡献，这些文学作品探讨了尽管面临多重挑战，学生仍留在大学的原因。