Quarter of students are dropping out of university despite Government's 1bn drive

Almost a quarter of students drop out of their courses despite £1billion in funding to tackle the problem, university league tables reveal today.

Some former polytechnics are losing up to half their students, it has emerged.

Today's tables show the drop-out rate has risen to 76,600 - up 5,000 from last year - even though nearly  £1billion has been earmarked to tackle the problem over seven years.

The Higher Education Statistics Agency revealed that 22.6 per cent of students failed to complete courses they started in 2005.

This compares with 22.4 per cent who began in 2004.

While 5.6 per cent switched to a different university and 2.5 per cent chose a lesser qualification, some 14.1 per cent - around one in seven or 47,788 - dropped out altogether.

The toll is worst among those with the lowest entry qualifications and at new universities, which take the lion's share of 'non-traditional' students.

At 43 institutions, mainly former polytechnics, more than a quarter of students failed to complete the course.

At the University of Bolton, just 50.5 per cent of undergraduates who started courses in 2005 will finish them there.

While 12 per cent transferred elsewhere or took a qualification beneath degree level, 38 per cent quit altogether.

In contrast, 92.6 per cent of Cambridge starters finished their degrees and 95.3 per cent did so at Oxford.

However, the figures pre-date the introduction of £3,000-a-year tuition fees at virtually all universities in Autumn 2006.

The figures emerged just months after a devastating Commons committee report claimed that £800million spent since 2003 on measures to stop students dropping out of university had virtually no impact. Another £200million is estimated to have been spent in the previous two years

At the time, Edward Leigh, Conservative MP for Gainsborough and chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said: 'It is five years on from our last report on student retention but the percentage of students dropping out from their original universities has not budged.

'This is despite some £800million being paid to universities over the same period to help retain students most likely to withdraw from courses early.

To be fair to the universities, they are expected to improve retention figures while increasing and widening participation.

Untitled-1.jpg

'More students are being recruited from backgrounds and schools where university was not previously thought to be an option. But these are the very students who are more likely to leave early.'

A related report from a public spending watchdog found that students quit for a wide range of reasons.

But the National Audit Office also found some are 'channelled into inappropriate subjects' while others find their courses 'too difficult'.

Some feel 'bored or otherwise dissatisfied with the standard of tuition' while the cost was too much for others.

Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell said: 'We still have one of the highest levels of student retention when compared internationally.

'This has been achieved and maintained during a period when the student population has increased and its diversity widened.'

But Rob Wilson, the Tory higher education spokesman, said: 'The Government must be embarrassed and bitterly disappointed by these figures.

'There's a lack of guidance being given which in some cases is stopping (students) going to our world-class universities and in others is throwing them into courses they should never be taking in the first place.'