Study suggests students from small towns struggle to cope when moving for school

Students from rural and small urban areas are significantly more likely to dropout out of university or college than students from cities, according to a new study by the Measuring the Effectiveness of Student Aid (MESA) project.

The study, headed by University of Ottawa economist, Ross Finnie, concluded that “About 28.7 percent of small urban college students leave PSE in their first or second year; meanwhile, only 21.7 percent of rural and 15.8 percent of large urban college students leave PSE in their first or second year.” For university students, about four per cent of students from cities dropout compared to eight per cent for rural students and approximately 12 per cent for students from small urban centres.

Finnie told the Ottawa Citizen that moving large distances is an important factor in the urban-rural divide. ”They find themselves in a new milieu, they’re uprooted from where they came from and they have challenges coping,” he said.

The study defined urban centres as those with a population of 100,000 or more, small urban centres as those with a population of between 10,000 and 100,000, and rural communities as those with less than 10,000. The researchers used data from the Longitudinal Survey of Low-Income Students which tracked 10,000 students who had received government financial aid between 2006 and 2009.

Other research from MESA compared the dropout rates of males and females. About 21 per cent of female college students dropout out in their first or second year compared to 25 per cent of male students. For university students, there was no difference between males and females with the dropout rate sitting at 6.7 per cent.

MESA also released data on aboriginal students that concluded that 30.8 per cent of aboriginal students, in college and university, dropout in their first or second year compared to 13 per cent of non-aboriginal students.

At-risk students earned $750 by maintaining at least a 2.0 GPA, among other requirements

A research project underway at three Ontario colleges has shown that the provision of student support services in combination with financial incentives has a marked impact on the persistence of students who are deemed at risk of dropping out.

The study, sponsored by the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation and the Ontario government, found that at-risk students who received academic, career and mentoring supports as well as the promise of $750 earned higher grades and were less likely to drop out of their program.

The key findings of the research show the following:

• One year after the Foundations for Success program began, 67.2 percent of students who received directed advisement to the full range of supports (including academic, career and mentoring supports) and a financial incentive were still enrolled in their program.
• Almost 65.8 percent of students who received directed advisement to the supports but no financial incentives were still enrolled.
• Only 62.6 percent of students in the control group (which did not receive direction to supports and did not receive financial incentives) were still enrolled.
• Adjusting for students who did not participate in any of the Foundations for Success program activities, the increase in retention was 6.4 percent.

Note that the students who received the $750 Foundations for Success fellowship were required to complete 12 hours of activities related to their individual at-risk factors, maintain at least a 2.0 GPA, and remain eligible for full-time enrollment at the start of the following semester.

The full report is available for download here in .pdf format.