An analysis of the characteristics of students who fail to complete university courses has found that whether a student attended a government or independent school and their socioeconomic background made little difference to the odds of completing their course.

The study, released today, investigated attrition rates from university courses, background factors that may influence attrition and the labour market consequences of non-completion. Data were collected from a group of young Australians who commenced university study between 1998 and 2001. Their education, training and labour market activities were tracked up until 2004 when they were around 23 years of age. Of the young people who enrolled in their first course at a university between 1998 and 2001, 66 per cent had completed that course by 2004, 16 per cent had withdrawn, 11 per cent had changed course and 8 per cent were continuing. From these figures, the expected completion rate for first courses was between 71 and 74 per cent and that for any university course around 80 per cent.

"The findings indicate that once students with a lower socioeconomic status enter university, their background does not negatively affect their chances of completing the course," said ACER chief executive Professor Geoff Masters. "To improve equity in university graduation rates, however, more needs to be done to assist students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to complete Year 12 and go on to university.'