The name is absent

In the classic research on college degree attainment, three categories of college
students were distinguished (Tinto, 1988, 1993; NCES, 1989): persisters, stopouts, and
dropouts. Persisters were defined as students who continued toward their degree goals;
stopouts withdrew and subsequently returned; and dropouts withdrew and never
returned.²

However, there are several reasons for expanding upon these definitions. First,
students may not only stop out and drop out, they may delay entry, enroll part-time,
and transfer between institutions (see Adelman, 1999). These behaviors require a more
complete set of behavioral definitions. Second, definitions of stopouts and dropouts are
directly related to the survey follow-up periods. For example, the National Center for
Education Statistics (NCES, 1989) defined dropouts as those who never return to
complete bachelor’s degree by the last survey year. For the class of 1980, it was by
February of 1986. Thus, the classification of a dropout or stopout can depend on the
length of follow-up periods. Third, another issue related to dropout is the need to
distinguish between dropout from a specific institution and that from the higher education
system as a whole. From the perspective of an institution, it can be reasonably argued
that all students who leave can be classified as dropouts regardless of their reasons. From
the perspective of the higher education system, this may not be the case. That is, a

² See Chapter 2 in Tinto (1993) for more detailed definitions.

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