Abstract
The study examines the possible effects of a recent policy change in Greece on students’ graduation rates. Our study mainly concentrates on the potential impact that the reform may have on the various categories of students, as these are classified by the way they enter the university. Records for students studying at a university of economic and social studies are analyzed by employing a probit model. Our main empirical finding suggests that students from all the other modes of entry, compared to students entering by means of general examinations, face a considerably higher probability of failure.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Since the restoration of democracy in 1974, Greek students enjoyed a highly permissive regime, which allowed for an unlimited time frame for the completion of studies, as well as an unlimited number of exam repetitions.
For further details see Kalamatianou and McClean (2003).
According to the ancient Greek myth, the 50 daughters of the hero Danaus, called the Danaids, were brought into forced marriage to the 50 sons of Aegyptus. In a conspiracy led by their father they killed their husbands on their wedding nights. For the crime they committed, the Danaids were punished in Tartarus by being forced to carry water in jugs to fill an earthenware jar that would cleanse them of their sins, but the jar was full of holes, so the water always leaked out.
During these two academic years, eight departments were in operation at the UoM. In the departments included, except from the department of Music Studies and Art, the subject of economics is a major or one of the major subject.
With respect to this variable, it is important to bear in mind that students from modes 7 and 8, that is students pursuing a second degree, are excluded from being considered for free meals, regardless of their family income. To take this into account, we estimated two separate models, one including and another excluding students from modes 7 and 8. Since the statistical results were identical, we present here the model including all students only.
For details about the normalization procedure, see Anderson and Newell (2003).
The base category is: those students who permanently live close to the area of the UoM.
The tests differ according to the way that the observations are classified within a particular group. The number of groups selected to perform both tests is six (Hosmer and Lemeshow 1989, suggest using a minimum of six groups).
In our testing for heteroscedasticity the z-vector incorporates all the variables associated with the different forms of entry. As a result, the estimated LM statistic follows the χ2 distribution with eight degrees of freedom.
In the Greek university entry system candidate students choose primarily the subject to study and not the institution. Customarily, the decision on the institution to study is taken on the ground of its proximity to their family residence provided of course that it offers the subject of their interest. This behaviour is probably associated with the fact that there exists no official ranking of the universities in Greece. The situation may change as the process of assessment and evaluation, which has hesitantly begun 3 years ago, gives its results.
References
Anderson S, Newell R (2003) Simplified marginal effects in discrete choice models. Econ Lett 81:321–326
Andrews D (1988a) Chi-square diagnostic tests for econometric models: theory. Econometrica 56:1419–1453
Andrews D (1988b) Chi-square diagnostic tests for econometric models: introduction and applications. J Econ 37:135–156
Bennett R (2003) Determinants of undergraduate student drop-out rates in a university business studies department. J Furth High Educ 27:123–141
Bera AK, Jarque CM, Lee LF (1984) Testing the normality assumption in limited dependent variable models. Int Econ Rev 25:563–578
Bratti M, Checchi D, de Blassio G (2008) Does the expansion of higher education increase the equality of educational opportunities? Evidence from Italy; IZA Discussion Papers 3361, Institute for the Study of Labour
Carlevaro F, Senegas M (2006) Simplified marginal effects in discrete choice models: a correction. Econ Lett 92:44–46
Davidson R, MacKinnon J (1993) Estimation and inference in econometrics. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Davies P, Rudden T (2000) Differential achievement: what does the ISR profile tell us? Learning and Skills Development Agency, London
Dayioğlu M, Türüt-Aşik S (2007) Gender differences in academic performance in a large public university in Turkey. High Educ 53:255–277
Di Pietro G, Cutillo A (2008) Degree flexibility and university drop-out: the Italian experience. Econ Educ Rev 27:546–555
Dynarski S (2005) Building the stock of college-educated labour, working paper, 11604, national bureau of economic research working paper series, on line at: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11604. Retrieved 25 Apr 2009
Goodman LA, Kruskal WH (1979) Measures of association for cross classification. Springer, New York
Greene WH (2003) Econometric analysis, 5th edn. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River
Hoskins SL, Newstead SE, Dennis I (1997) Degree performance as a function of age, gender, prior qualifications and discipline studied. Assess Eval High Educ 22:317–328
Hosmer D, Lemeshow S (1989) Applied logistic regression. Wiley, New York
Hyde JS, Kling KC (2001) Women, motivation, and achievement. Psychol Women Q 25:364–378
Johnes J (1990) Determinants of student wastage in higher education. Stud High Educ 15:87–99
Johnes G, McNabb R (2004) Never give up on the good times: student attrition in the UK. Oxf Bull Econ Stat 66:0305–9049
Kalamatianou A, McClean S (2003) The perpetual student: modelling duration of undergraduate studies based on lifetime-type educational data. Lifetime Data Anal 9:311–330
Katsikas E, Dergiades T (2009) Using degree grades as indicator of performance in a Greek university of social studies. Eval Res Educ 22:33–49
Martinez P, Munday F (1998) 9,000 voices: student persistence and drop-out in further education. Further Education Development Agency (FEDA) Report, vol 2, No 7. FEDA, London
McFadden DF (1974) Conditional logit analysis of qualitative choice behavior. In: Zaremba P (ed) Frontiers in econometrics. Academic Press, NY, pp 105–142
McNabb R, Pal S, Sloane P (2002) Gender differences in educational attainment: the case of university studies in England and wales. Economica 69:481–503
Ministry of Education (2009a) General examinations, on line at: http://www.alfavita.gr/ejetaseis05/ej5_3_09_643php. Retrieved 15 May 2009
Ministry of Education (2009b) Access to tertiary education; defining the special categories of entrants, online at: http://users.forthnet.gr/ser/lykeio1/prosvasi.htm. Retrieved 15 May 2009
Papke LE, Wooldridge JM (1996) Econometric methods for fractional response variables with an application to 401(k) plan participation rates. J Appl Econom 11:619–632
Pesaran H, Timmermann A (1992) A simple nonparametric test of predictive performance. J Bus Econ Stat 10:461–465
Powdthavee N, Vignoles (2008) The socio-economic gap in university drop out, on line access at: http://www.tlrp.org/dspace/handle/123456789/1280. Access 10 Nov 2008
Psacharopoulos G, Papakonstantinou G (2005) The real university cost in a “free” higher education country. Econ Educ Rev 24:103–108
Singell LD (2004) Come and stay a while: does financial aid effect retention conditioned on enrollment at a large public university? Econ Educ Rev 23:459–471
Smith J, Naylor R (2001) Dropping out of university: a statistical analysis of the probability of withdrawal for UK university students. J R Stat Soc Series A, 164, part 2, pp 389–405
Somers RH (1962) A new asymmetric measure of association for ordinal variables. Am Sociol Rev 27:799–811
Wilde J (2007) A simple representation of the Bera-Jarque-Lee Test for probit models, IWH, Discussion Paper, No 13
Yorke M, Thomas L (2003) Improving the retention of students from lower socio-economic groups. J High Educ Policy Manag 25:63–74
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank two anonymous referees of this journal for their valuable and constructive comments. We thank also Robert Wiedmer and Rebecca Apostolidou for the instructive suggestions on an earlier draft of the paper. We are grateful to the administration of the UoM for providing us permission to access to individual students’ records on a limited basis. Finally, we express our thanks to the following members of the administrative secretariat for their assistance in recording the data analyzed in this article: Josephina Dimitrova, Stelios Haritakis, Eleftheria Kiale, Niki Kougoula, Zoi Manou, Fotis Sarigiannis, Maria Tsapakidou, Vicky Valani and Thomai Zia.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Katsikas, E., Dergiades, T. Revising higher education policy in Greece: filling the Danaids’ Jar. Empirica 39, 279–292 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10663-011-9168-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10663-011-9168-1