Predicting time to graduation at a large enrollment American university

PLoS One. 2020 Nov 13;15(11):e0242334. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0242334. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

The time it takes a student to graduate with a university degree is mitigated by a variety of factors such as their background, the academic performance at university, and their integration into the social communities of the university they attend. Different universities have different populations, student services, instruction styles, and degree programs, however, they all collect institutional data. This study presents data for 160,933 students attending a large American research university. The data includes performance, enrollment, demographics, and preparation features. Discrete time hazard models for the time-to-graduation are presented in the context of Tinto's Theory of Drop Out. Additionally, a novel machine learning method: gradient boosted trees, is applied and compared to the typical maximum likelihood method. We demonstrate that enrollment factors (such as changing a major) lead to greater increases in model predictive performance of when a student graduates than performance factors (such as grades) or preparation (such as high school GPA).

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Educational Status*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Likelihood Functions
  • Logistic Models
  • Male
  • Time Factors
  • United States
  • Universities / statistics & numerical data*
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

MDC - The Michigan State University College of Natural Sciences including the STEM Gateway Fellowship and the Lappan-Phillips Foundation https://msu.edu. MDC - the Association of American Universities https://www.aau.edu/. MDC, MJH - the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (NOKUT), which supports the Center for Computing in Science Education. https://www.nokut.no/en/. MJH - INTPART project of the Research Council of Norway (Grant No. 288125). https://www.forskningsradet.no/en/call-for-proposals/2019/funding-for-international-partnerships/. MJH - U.S. National Science Foundation (Grant No. PHY-1404159). https://www.nsf.gov/index.jsp. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.