Academic-Capital

Dropout rates have become an important educational marker of institutional success. It doesn’t matter if the metric is used to define high schools, college, or even training. A drop out is a sunk cost and administrators are concerned about its implications for the future of certain programs. However, dropout rates, like any other metric, is only part of the issue. It is a number that is redefined depending on which definition the evaluator wishes to use and the general educational environment. An article in the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning discussed the nature of common definitions of dropout and how these measurements are somewhat subjective (Grau-Valldosera & Minguillon, 2014). Current definitions may be inaccurate and not applicable to online education as much as it is to traditional schools.  Students in the online system may leave and return a year or more later; they are calculated as dropouts. Under more traditional systems the