Small Town Students Are More Likely To Drop Out, Says Study

Small town students triple the university dropout rates versus their big city classmates.

The move to a bigger city and busy campus may be too much for many small town freshmen. Data released by the MESA project this week shows that students from rural communities and small urban centres have, respectively, double and triple the university dropout rates as their big city classmates.

The numbers for college students are less glaring, but still noticeable. Roughly 29% of smaller community students drop out in their first or second year, while 22% of rural students do the same, and only 16% of city students drop out early.

Smaller communities are defined as having a population between 10,000 and 100,000 people, communities are defined with populations less than 10,000, and cities have populations more than 100,000.

The report is called “Large Urban, Small Urban and Rural Students” and is based on data from the Longitudinal Survey of Low-Income Students (L-SLIS) which followed over 10,000 student aid recipients for a period of three years.

Their report also shows that small-town students are more likely to have saved money for their education, while students from bigger areas can potentially study at home so they save less.

The MESA Project also released research briefs on statistics surrounding Aboriginal students and the differences between male and female students.