Not sure about your programme? What the numbers say about dropping out

If you started university a few weeks ago and already have doubts, you are in good company. The first weeks are when many people start asking whether they chose the right programme. This article looks at what the available figures say about dropping out, switching and starting again, and how you can judge your own situation calmly.

A caveat first. The figures below come from Germany and from the Canton of Zurich in Switzerland, and they are not recent. The German data are from a 2022 study, the Swiss data cover students who started in 2012–14. I found no confirmed figures for Austria and no international average, so treat these numbers as examples of how dropout varies, not as global rates.

What the German numbers show

The German research institute DZHW published its latest dropout figures in August 2022. Of the bachelor students who started in 2016/17, 28% left without a degree. That figure allows for the longer stays caused by Covid, and it matches the 27% calculated two years earlier. For master's students who started in 2018, the rate was 21%. The quota applies to students with German citizenship. You can read the details in the DZHW press release.

The gap between types of institution is large. At universities, 35% of bachelor students dropped out. At universities of applied sciences (HAW in Germany) the figure was 20%. According to the DZHW, the lower HAW figure is mainly due to a different mix of subjects, and partly to certain conditions at those institutions.

The field matters

Within universities, the differences between fields are even larger:

• Humanities: 49%
• Mathematics and natural sciences: 50%
• Law, business and social sciences: 21%
• Teacher-training programmes: 10%

At universities of applied sciences, mathematics and natural sciences had 39% and law, business and social sciences 13%.

These numbers do not mean that mathematics or physics are bad choices, or that law or education are safe ones. They show that the programme and the institution shape how a first year goes, and that a lot of dropout is about fit and structure, not about whether a person is clever enough.

What the Swiss numbers show

The Canton of Zurich published a report based on federal statistics (BFS) for students who entered higher education in 2012–14 and were followed for five years, with data up to 2019. Three quarters of bachelor students reached a degree within five years. Of the rest, half left without a degree and half were still studying after five years.

At Zurich institutions, 13% of bachelor students dropped out, compared with 17% at other Swiss institutions. The report is about Zurich, so do not read 13% as a national figure.

The most useful finding for you may be what happens next. Four in ten people who dropped out started higher education again within four years, and they usually chose a different institution. The report also says that social background influences the choice of field and institution, as well as financing and time budget. It notes that conditions probably got worse during the pandemic. You can find the full report on the Zurich government site.

Why you cannot compare the countries

The DZHW and the BFS use different cohorts and different methods. A German 28% and a Zurich 13% do not measure the same thing, so do not set them against each other.

A dropout statistic also counts everyone who leaves without a degree. It does not tell apart someone who left for a better programme or a job from someone who gave up. A person who switches from one subject to another may appear in the numbers as a dropout, even though the story is a good one.

A calm way to tell a wrong programme from a rough start

The figures do not give you a personal risk score, and nothing here predicts what will happen to you. They suggest a few questions that are worth asking yourself:

1. Is the difficulty in the first weeks about the amount of work and a new routine, or about the content itself?
2. Do you still find the subject interesting when you leave the lecture hall?
3. Would a different institution offering the same subject solve the problem?
4. Are money, time or living situation the real issue rather than the programme?

If the answers to the first two are mostly yes, you may simply be in a rough start. If the content itself does not interest you, a switch is worth considering. If the answer to the third is yes, remember that in the Zurich data a different institution was the usual route for people who started again.

If you are unsure what you actually want, the free questionnaire on this site compares your interests with 80 fields of study and lists matching degree programmes. It can help you see which direction you would switch to before you decide anything.

Your university will usually have a student advisory service, and talking to them before you formally withdraw costs nothing. Dropping out is common, it is rarely the end of a study path, and the next step often looks different from what you first pictured.