About this Research Topic

Background

University dropout is a global problem with pernicious social and economic effects. The various university systems in developed countries illustrate the seriousness of the issue. In Spain, through the annual reports of Data and Figures of the Spanish University System published by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. The situation of Spain in the developed countries as a whole, with a comparative perspective and the global dimension of the problem, is dealt with in successive reports by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. The successive reports of the OECD and the EU through Eurostat deal with the situation of Spain in a comparative perspective and the global dimension of the problem.

As is the case at the international level, the dropout of Spanish university students is one of the main problems of the university system, which requires academic and scientific efforts to provide a better quality of education. demands to achieve academic and scientific efforts to provide ways of solution (Feixas, Muñoz, Gairín, Rodríguez and Navarro, 2015). In studies such as those of Cabrera, Pérez and López (2014) report the concern of Spanish universities about the increase in the number of Spanish university students who abandon their university studies. These works coincide with international studies, such as that of Tinto (2018), which corroborates that approximately one third of first-year university students, in advanced countries, consider the idea of dropping out of their studies.

College dropout is a major problem for all countries. The problem addressed is academic dropout in universities. University dropout is a global problem with pernicious social and economic effects (Hernández, 2010). In the 2013/14 academic year it affected 18.6% of students enrolled in the first year of undergraduate studies in Andalusian universities, that is, 9660 students (according to data from the Fundación CYD, 2016). This represents an unproductive expenditure in the budgets of the Autonomous Community of Andalusia of more than five million euros. Autonomous Community of more than five and a half million euros per year. This is such a high expenditure that it justifies an effort to find out the causes that provoke it and an attempt to prevent it. This Research Topic welcomes contributions (but is no limited to):

1. To collect data on the dimension and evolution of academic failure during the years of implementation of the new undergraduate studies, monitoring the disaggregated figures of cohorts, degrees and universities.

2. Documentary review of the actions developed by the Andalusian Universities for the prediction and prevention of academic dropout.

3. To elaborate a set of biographical trajectories of students who have dropped out of the university system in order to deepen the understanding of the causes that originate it, using a cross-story design: centers, degrees, universities.

4. To analyze the biographical trajectories elaborated to find specific similarities and differences in student perceptions of dropout, using Cmap Tools and ATLAS.ti programs for content representation and qualitative data analysis.

5. To make proposals for the orientation of educational policies and the readjustment of educational models that allow predicting and preventing the personal, social, economic and academic causes that have an impact on the dropout rate, economic and academic causes that influence dropout, and allow the implementation of new pedagogical proposals.

Keywords: Higher Education, College Dropout, Dropout Prevention, College Persistence, University University Persistence, Biographical-Narrative Research

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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