Am I wasting my time? The influence of course unemployment in academic dropout

What is it about?

Unemployment has a conflicting influence on Higher Education (HE) dropout, decreasing both opportunity costs and expected benefits of studying. Herein, we distinguished these two effects, and show the importance of using course-specific unemployment rates for evaluating the employment prospects in the decision of dropping out. Dropout rates are higher in less practical courses and with higher percentages of males, foreign and older students. COVID-19 had a stronger effect on the dropout-unemployment relationship in Services, Welfare, Arts and Humanities courses.

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