When do students tend to leave, and why does that matter?
When students tend to leave your program matters because the point at which students or participants leave often narrows down the reasons. Students who stop attending in the first few weeks may have met a schedule, cost, or transportation problem the program didn't anticipate, or an experience that made them feel they didn't belong. Students who leave between terms may be running into registration, financial aid, or a change in their work or family life. Students who leave at one particular course may be telling you something about that course or what it assumes they already know.
Look at your records by cohort and by week or term, and then by group, such as full-time and part-time students, working students, and students at different sites. An overall completion rate can hide a group whose experience differs sharply from everyone else's. The pattern won't tell you why students left, but it will tell you which students to ask and what to ask them about.
If students are leaving during an internship or apprenticeship placement, Our interns and apprentices aren't sticking. What's going wrong? covers that setting specifically.
What gets in the way of finishing besides academics?
What gets in the way of finishing a program, besides academics, is often the rest of a student's life: the job they can't give up, the cost of attending, the distance they travel, and the people who depend on them. Programs can create barriers of their own, too, through when classes meet, how support is communicated, and how quickly aid or registration problems get resolved.
For example, a 2025 national report on students in the National Science Foundation's S-STEM scholarship program, based on surveys and interviews, found scholars describing several barriers to taking part in program activities: balancing work and classes, costs the program didn't cover and delays in scholarship payments, long commutes and limited transportation, childcare and other caregiving, not knowing what support was available, and feelings of impostor syndrome. The report covers taking part in one program's activities rather than who left, so treat it as a list of pressures worth checking for in your own program.
How students interpret what happens to them matters as well. A poor grade on an early exam is real, but "I'm not capable of this" is an interpretation, and it can shape what a student does next. Students who don't yet feel they belong in a program, or can't yet picture themselves in the work, may be more likely to read a setback as a sign to leave. How do students actually end up choosing a career path? looks at how that sense of identity forms.
How do we find out why our students left?
You can find out why your students left by asking them, and by asking the students who stayed, in ways that let them answer honestly. Your records can show who left and when. Administrative data might show that one group has lower completion rates, and students' own accounts can reveal barriers the numbers alone can't identify.
Depending on the program, that might mean a short survey after students enroll and again later in the program, focus groups with current students, participatory listening sessions in which students help shape the questions and interpret what was said, or brief conversations with students who have left. What the students who stayed tell you about what helped them shows you what to protect and build on.
Who asks makes a difference. Students may not be candid with an instructor or a program director who controls their grades or their placement, and an external evaluator removes the power dynamic between program staff and participants, or professors and students. Follow IRB and institutional guidelines, protect students' privacy, and take particular care when a group is small enough that a summary could identify someone. How do we evaluate students or participants ethically? covers this in more detail.
What can a program change once it knows why students leave?
Once a program knows why students leave, it can change the conditions it controls and help students build the capacity to handle what it can't control for them. Depending on what you learn, that might mean offering classes at times that work for students with jobs, explaining costs and aid timing before students enroll, connecting students with emergency funds or transportation help, making support visible in the first week, or having someone reach out when a student misses class.
Support shouldn't mean rescue. Pairing high standards with real support, and asking a struggling student "What are your options? Who could help? What will you do next?", can build a student's ability to handle the next challenge as well as this one. It also helps to build a system of support across the program, so that no single instructor or mentor has to be everything to every student.
Then look again at who is finishing, and ask whether the changes made a difference. Whether to put your effort into keeping students or recruiting more is covered in Should we spend our effort recruiting more students or keeping the ones we have?. If the people leaving are employees rather than students, Our younger employees and our newer immigrant employees leave first. What are we missing? looks at the employer side.
The Grantibly perspective
Angelika's perspective
We often think of persistence as an inherent personal trait that can't be cultivated, but it's better seen as a capacity that can be built. Many students face real barriers, such as financial pressure, competing responsibilities, and environments where they don't feel they belong, and institutions are responsible for addressing them. At the same time, students can strengthen the skills, mindset, and identity that help them move through challenges.
Persistence also has limits. A student overwhelmed by financial insecurity, caregiving, transportation, health needs, or an unmanageable workload may need resources more than a better mindset. Persistence isn't simply enduring everything. It requires the capacity to adapt, reasons to continue, resources to draw upon, and sufficient wellbeing to remain engaged.
