STUDENT DROPOUT RATE IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

The students' dropout is an important topic in many countries, because the country wastes the taxpayers' money and the proportion of graduated people. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the causes of the first study course students' dropout rates at the Latvia University of Agriculture using the data of the engineering science faculties from 2012 to 2014. Information about the students' study duration in months, age, gender, competition mark sum was included in the data analyses. The proportional hazard model or Cox model was used for evaluation of the students' dropout causes. The students' dropout rate is associated with the faculty or subject studied at the university ( study program curriculum), gender and competition mark sum. There is significant difference between average competition mark sums of dropout students and continued study students. During the first academic year 26 % of the students on average leave the university, where the highest students' dropout rate between the engineering science faculties was 47.6 % in 2012-2014.