Abstract
Academic dismissal policies are increasingly implemented to promote academic success, with existing empirical evidence mostly restricted to short-run outcomes. This study examines long-term academic outcomes of academic dismissal for two cohorts (Formula presented.) of first-year bachelor students in Economics and Business at a Dutch university. Using administrative records, regression discontinuity design estimates suggest that academic dismissal does not relate to a difference in the propensity of graduation, nor to a change in study delay, when comparing students around the academic dismissal threshold. Not meeting this credit-threshold forces students to leave, and most decide to re-enroll in the same (43.4%) program elsewhere or at least within the academic domain (41.9%). Thus, while academic dismissal forces students to switch, its intended purpose of redirecting students to a different field of study is not observed. Implications for why academic dismissal might not deliver on the intended efficiency or effectiveness gains are discussed.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2175-2189 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Studies in Higher Education |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue number | 11 |
| Early online date | 30 Mar 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors thank the University of Amsterdam for making available the data on academic dismissal for the cohorts considered in this study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Funding
The authors thank the University of Amsterdam for making available the data on academic dismissal for the cohorts considered in this study.
Keywords
- Academic dismissal
- educational attainment
- higher education
- student graduation