Stop-out and drop-out: The behavior of the first year withdrawal of students of the Brazilian higher education receiving FIES funding

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the first-year withdrawal of students that enrolled in college in 2011 and 2016 – the years that followed major changes on Programa de Financiamento Estudantil (Student Financing Fund - FIES) – and that received funding. Data from the 2011 and 2016 Higher Education Census and from the National Fund for Educational Development (FNDE) database of students are used. The Logit and Logit Multinomial methods are employed. Age has opposite effects in each of the years: while in 2011 older students withdrew less often, in 2016 they began to withdraw more often from their programs. In addition, when analyzing the result of the Logit, what is found is that students who entered college in 2016 both dropped out and stopped out of the programs more often. These changes may be a result of a crisis on higher education.