A multilevel competing risks model for analysis of university students’ careers: evidence from Italy

This paper examines individual and institutional characteristics which may influence the outcomes of university students' careers. In particular, it examines the withdrawals, course changes, delays or graduations of students enrolled in first-cycle degree courses in a large public university in North-East Italy. Individual longitudinal data from administrative archives were used, taking into account both the temporal dimension in a discrete-time competing risks approach, and the organisational and structural characteristics of the degree courses in which students were enrolled. In order to examine the hierarchical nature of the data properly, analyses were carried out within a multilevel framework. At individual level, results indicate that the profile of a successful student is defined by both socio-demographic factors and pre-university educational experience. At course level, some characteristics such as restricted access to some courses, study fields, and course size were important for students' university careers, although the effects were not always in the expected direction.