Dropout and switch of tertiary education students is a long enduring problem in the Netherlands. Roughly 30% of higher secondary education graduates in the Netherlands drops out of tertiary education or switches to a different field of tertiary education. This paper investigates the effect of career orientation guidance at secondary education on retention rates in tertiary education. It uses administrative data of higher secondary education graduates from cohort 2004/2005 until 2013/2014 in the Netherlands. In a difference-in-differences design, it first shows that the introduction of a specific career orientation guidance package, Qompas, does not improve retention outcomes. Subsequently, exploiting shocks in intensity of use of this package, this study shows that providing more extensive career orientation guidance at secondary school significantly improves retention outcomes. The larger the shock in intensity, the larger the effect on retention outcomes. In addition, this study suggests that more extensive career orientation guidance improves enrollment rates in tertiary education among non-western immigrants, Havo students and females.

Webbink, H.D.
hdl.handle.net/2105/37294
Business Economics
Erasmus School of Economics

Heuvel, N.P. van den. (2017, March 3). Does career orientation guidance improve retention rates in tertiary education?. Business Economics. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2105/37294