Dropouts on the rise globally as university participation surges

There is a growing gap between the number of students entering tertiary education and those who successfully complete a degree, Unesco has warned. 

A new report has found higher education completion rates have failed to keep up with a global surge in participation, as countries are urged to look beyond enrolment levels alone when setting targets for their education systems. 

Analysts at Unesco, which published the Global Education Monitoring report on 25 March, found the gross enrolment ratio in tertiary education has more than doubled globally over the past 25 years, rising from 19 per cent in 2000 to 44 per cent in 2024. 

The fastest growth took place in East and South-east Asia, where the ratio quadrupled from 16 per cent to 63 per cent during the same time period. 

However, the global graduation rate has increased at less than half the rate of participation, suggesting the proportion of students dropping out has risen. 

The gross graduation ratio from first-degree programmes rose from 17 per cent in 2000 to 27 per cent in 2024, driven primarily by gains in East and South-east Asia, where it increased from 13 per cent in 2004 to 41 per cent in 2024.

Attainment rates have also risen at a much lower rate than participation, confirming “the assumption that there is a considerable dropout issue in tertiary education”, the report says. 

The analysis found the share of bachelor’s students who drop out within the first year of study is 15 per cent or more in high-income countries including Australia, Denmark, Iceland, Slovenia and Poland, while in many Latin American countries, including Brazil, Colombia and Peru, it exceeds 20 per cent. 

The report looks at the case study of China, where enrolment in tertiary education surged at an “unprecedented” rate from 7 per cent in 1999 to 77 per cent in 2024, driven by the expansion of university places and increased spending on top-tier universities. 

It found the superpower had largely avoided the completion problems other countries have experienced, with most students finishing their degrees “without significant delays, which is remarkable considering that the pace of expansion has included students from disadvantaged backgrounds”. 

“At the current rate of expansion, [China] will exceed the high-income country average [for gross enrolment] in 2028,” it says. 

The report highlights other issues with monitoring progress based on the tertiary education gross enrolment ratio, which is one of the measures used as part of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. 

For example, countries with longer typical programme durations have higher enrolment ratios, even if they are not actually providing broader access to tertiary education. Similarly, the measure can be inflated if a student enrols in two programmes at once. 

Individualised data is needed, the report says, to measure the rate at which students who enter tertiary education complete their studies and how long it takes them to do so. This data does already exist in some countries and shows substantial variations between nations. 

It adds that the monitoring of tertiary data must evolve to reflect the increased uptake of distance and online learning. 

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com