The Quality of the Student Experience: What can institutions learn from data relating to non-completion?

Surveys of students who had prematurely left six institutions in the north-west of England during, or at the end of, the academic years 1994‐1995 and 1995‐1996 generated 2151 responses from full-time and sandwich students. The influences on their non-completion could be reduced to six main factors, in which dissatisfaction with the quality of the student experience was prominent. Analyses conducted with reference to academic subject categories showed some marked differences in the determinants of non-completion. Other background variables were also associated with such differences. The findings are of significance for institutional efforts to improve the quality of the student experience.