Economic and Non-Economic Factors Influencing Graduation Rates: A Study of Peer Regional Comprehensive Universities

Abstract

This paper investigates economic and non-economic factors that impact six-year graduation rates in a sample of eleven regional comprehensive universities belonging in the same peer group. We find both economic and non-economic factors to impact graduation rates but there appears to be more evidence supporting the role of non-economic or quasi-economic factors. The most important factor impacting six-year graduation rates in our sample is related to institutional resources measured by the student-to-faculty ratio, which is found to hurt graduation rates. This result remains robust to considering a different graduation rate such as four-year graduation rates. In addition, the results remain robust to controlling for endogeneity issues in the regression analysis. The findings have important implications for university administrations seeking to find ways to increase graduation rates. (I22, I24)