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Two obvious forms of student "wastage" are academic failure and withdrawal from university. In this prospective cohort study of 2,041 first-year students at Monash University, the relationship of these two events to mental health, university life-stress and other variables is examined. Four factors found to be strongly related to first-year academic failure are mental illness at university a high level of life-stress, poor secondary school academic record, and an extroverted personality. Withdrawal from university during first year is frequently preceded by poor mental health, high life-stress and loneliness. Withdrawal during second year is strongly associated with first-year academic failure and mental illness. The significance of these findings is discussed, and comparisons are made with overseas studies.
McMichael et al. (Tue,) studied this question.