Student reflections on desertion: the case of a Mexican university

Abstract

The educational dropout is a phenomenon that has occurred at all levels: primary, middle, secondary, and higher education for decades in the Mexican context, specially, after the COVID-19 pandemic in which a high rate of dropout has been observed (INEGI, 2021). This article comes from a project which objective is to specifically explore, from an emic perspective, university students' dropout causes in a Mexican southern university. Thus, ten semi-structured in-depth interviews were analyzed in a concrete way and under a metacognitive process to identify the reasons behind dropping. Data was processed as codes and organized into categories to form, later, central concepts, by using the MAXQDA software. Among findings, we can mention that the dropping phenomenon is complex and multifactorial; nonetheless, it was possible to identify three central causes: academic (e.g., organizational management of undergraduate programs), personal (e.g., mental health), and economic (e.g. to prioritize work before studies). Similarly, some mechanisms to support students, between a short- and long-term period of time (e.g., a program to strength the graduation efficiency rate), are proposed to reduce the high rates of dropout in this study case.