>HEA) shows the number of students who did not progress from first to second year increased from 9 per cent in 2019/2020, or 3,600 students, to 15 per cent in 2021/2022, or almost 7,000 students.
60% of people who started in my second year class dropped out, couple of them said the toll the course took mental health meant they had to drop out
Would be interesting to see breakdowns of other years, could only find people not advancing to second year in the article would be interesting ti see the other years
Kinda burying the lede when the mental health issues are being caused longer commutes and less participation in campus activities (likely caused by not living near by).
In my final semester of a 3 year course in DCU and I have hated it, but I always felt this expectation that I needed a degree. Turns out I could’ve gotten where I eventually decided to go (clerical officer) without it. Did well in school but college is NOT for me and many others. An hour and a half commute doesn’t help, especially when I go in to see a lecturer provide little to no extra information compared to what’s on the slides. Also my course has barely any real world application so it’s felt like a complete waste of time.
Anyway, 17/18 year olds out there – there are other options than college and please take the time to consider them before jumping into something.
Article keeps using commuting instead of “nowhere to live”
Job losses, business closures, students dropping out of college….we are in a recession but the economic lads call it a “technical recession” because they hope we will have some growth this year….sorry to burst the economic lads bubble but Inflation and corpo greed has really started to make people stop spending.
A lot of people that drop out in first year burn themselves out and the main issue was them just not showing up for class which isnt a difficult thing to do fo rmost.
Is it not also a case that the value of the education has decreased?
Used to be that a degree marked you out as something extra whereas now it just keeps you treading water.
At least some of the degrees are objectively worthless, and students must be aware of that.
And before someone says it, yes, i do value education. Hon degree plus H.Dip (top of my 160ish (or was it 120? not sure, in that region anyway) man year group I might add) under my belt.
Edit: i know at least one of my former classmates is on here. Hi!
Well given the fact we’re in a recession, student accommodation is nearly impossible to get and expensive which means long commutes and the fact there are students who work alongside their studies just so they don’t go hungry, it’s not unexpected.
There’s a student in my class who lives 2 counties away and gets up at 6 for a 10am lecture.
My course started with 35.
We’re down to 21 in the final year, with 2 drop outs this year alone.
College is not all that useful anymore, at least for a lot of jobs and then, at least in my field, there are entry level jobs that require several years experience.
How do you get the experience if you can’t even qualify for entry level jobs?
The mixture of the stress it puts on students pockets and the fact that degrees just aren’t as valuable as they once were means that students are going to have poor mental health.
College is not for everyone
17/18 year olds don’t know what they want
Mental health supports almost non existent
Agenda of getting huge number of college graduates worked to attract FDI but led to media frenzy around LC and college places which distorted reality.
A lot of/ some college degrees and diplomas are useless.
My previous employer dropped the requirement to have a business degree to be considered for a position. Now they’ll take anyone which sorta shows the way things will go. IMO a degree isn’t as important compared to 10/20 years ago and employers know they can just train people to do the job.
A big thing in my course at college was people picking the degree simply because it was good for jobs but it was a pretty difficult course.
Kids going to college are often massively uninformed about the contents of the degree program they are entering and the kind of skillset needed for the course.
Universities need to start introducing free aptitude courses for courses with high dropout rates for prospective students to try out and see if it’s the kind of material they want to study and/or have the capability for.
This stage in life, whether in college, training or an apprenticeship, used to be about taking risks and establishing yourself.
Get into a cheap flatshare or bedsit, have some craic, make new friends and learn things. If you messed up, you could go home—no big deal. Now, it’s a tightrope act that can seriously fuck young people’s prospects from the start if it goes wrong due to insane rent, COL and debt.
Of course mental health is in the toilet.
might the fact that they gave kids a pass on the Leaving Cert during COVID – or gave them grades their teachers said they deserved – inflate grades and land some people into courses they weren’t able for?
This is nothing new. I finished up in college about 25 years ago. I did an Electrical/Electronic Engineering Degree course. Hated every single second of it. But I persevered and got through it. Out of 160 in my class in 1st year around 30 of us managed to complete the course. A lot of drop outs and exam failure. Dublin University, everyone commuted in and out. There was no real student life or atmosphere. I lived off of £50 per week, £25 for rent, £5 to go home at weekends and that left me with £20 for food and socialising. 6 cans of McEwans Lager was £5 back then and a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 in the back pocket would get you a great night out for £10. Food for the week £10. I was in Galway with work last year as students were going back to college. They were eating out in restaurants. 😀 I couldn’t imagine eating out when I was in college. I couldn’t even afford the college canteen. Well I could have if I didn’t go out, but that Thursday night once a week was special. I worked hard over the summers to save and I always paid my own way for one semester. It was tough and I hated it. No central heating and shitty flats. But very affordable. Glad I went through it all now.
>When broken down by study area, dropout rates were highest for services (28 per cent)
What are ‘services’?
I never see social media use and chronic consumption of entertainment as a topic when it comes to young people’s mental health yet it’s a major part of the problem.
Being in your twenties used to be about trying out different things and see what works. Most people I know feel like they have to make their choice and stick to it. You work and maybe can afford to rent or you study and pray you make enough after to be able to rent. I do feel my right to choose has been removed. If I decide to leave my parents house I am sacrificing my mortgage deposit but I have to live in Waterford and commute to Dublin for the career I want- or simply change careers (settle) . If I decide to go to Dublin and rent I might make the career I want but I will never be able to get the money together for a deposit again. I feel like I’m being made to choose between having a home and having a career. Everyone says that the current costs are unsustainable but I’m old enough to remember that they’ve been saying that since I was still in school, how much longer do we wait? Living with your parents at 30 used to be something people were ashamed of, now having your own place at 30 is seen as a selfish bad financial decision.
Too everyone talking about housing crisis – that is definitely an element but not the only one.
Helicopter parenting plays a big part in this. I work with students dropping out, failing and in “academic crisis” in college. The number of parents who come in with their 21 year kids since Covid has exploded. There was always a % of pushing south Dublin Mommy who would try to get their son or daughter through a year with legal threats but the number of parents who are treating their adult children (19 20 year olds) like they are 14 is crazy.
A related factor is also that some students have never had to commute before college. meaning they never took a bus to get to education. Mammy drove them to the door of school. Commuting as a concept is genuinely new to them. And having to take 2 forms of public transport, no matter how long the commute is, seems to be an absolute deterrent to many students (in fairness it is to me too – we as Irish ppl hate mixed transport).
Also there has been a rental crisis for over a decade students have been living at home and not able to afford a car or motor bike of their own for at least 10 years if not 14 – these drop out rates are since 2019. Covid had an impact to ppl’s expectation of what college.
Year 1 students think when they arrive in week 1 of year 1 that there is nothing to do because the way 6th year was so scheduled and structured for them has given them a false sense of the world. They have zero initiative and zero self motivation to do anything – including having fun, dating, meeting new ppl. And this leads to severe isolation.
I would hate to be 18 right now the Gen Z culture is highly toxic and self defeating. The options open to me are fewer because we all have less options RN. But a major of them never had proper childhoods where they learned to be self starters and resilient. They were controlled and hyper shceduled by helicopter parents who have infantilized their adult children because it suits them for their kids never to grow up.
Generation snowflake.
The predicted grades for leaving cert during covid certainly didn’t help either.
Probably because so many students live in terrible situations either digs where you can’t have anyone over or with your parents. Long commutes as well. There was an [article](https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41311549.html) there a few weeks student accommodation being used to house asylum seekers. Like it all just takes its toll especially when you live far away from home. The financial stress only adds to it.
21 comments
>HEA) shows the number of students who did not progress from first to second year increased from 9 per cent in 2019/2020, or 3,600 students, to 15 per cent in 2021/2022, or almost 7,000 students.
60% of people who started in my second year class dropped out, couple of them said the toll the course took mental health meant they had to drop out
Would be interesting to see breakdowns of other years, could only find people not advancing to second year in the article would be interesting ti see the other years
Kinda burying the lede when the mental health issues are being caused longer commutes and less participation in campus activities (likely caused by not living near by).
In my final semester of a 3 year course in DCU and I have hated it, but I always felt this expectation that I needed a degree. Turns out I could’ve gotten where I eventually decided to go (clerical officer) without it. Did well in school but college is NOT for me and many others. An hour and a half commute doesn’t help, especially when I go in to see a lecturer provide little to no extra information compared to what’s on the slides. Also my course has barely any real world application so it’s felt like a complete waste of time.
Anyway, 17/18 year olds out there – there are other options than college and please take the time to consider them before jumping into something.
Article keeps using commuting instead of “nowhere to live”
Job losses, business closures, students dropping out of college….we are in a recession but the economic lads call it a “technical recession” because they hope we will have some growth this year….sorry to burst the economic lads bubble but Inflation and corpo greed has really started to make people stop spending.
A lot of people that drop out in first year burn themselves out and the main issue was them just not showing up for class which isnt a difficult thing to do fo rmost.
Is it not also a case that the value of the education has decreased?
Used to be that a degree marked you out as something extra whereas now it just keeps you treading water.
At least some of the degrees are objectively worthless, and students must be aware of that.
And before someone says it, yes, i do value education. Hon degree plus H.Dip (top of my 160ish (or was it 120? not sure, in that region anyway) man year group I might add) under my belt.
Edit: i know at least one of my former classmates is on here. Hi!
Well given the fact we’re in a recession, student accommodation is nearly impossible to get and expensive which means long commutes and the fact there are students who work alongside their studies just so they don’t go hungry, it’s not unexpected.
There’s a student in my class who lives 2 counties away and gets up at 6 for a 10am lecture.
My course started with 35.
We’re down to 21 in the final year, with 2 drop outs this year alone.
College is not all that useful anymore, at least for a lot of jobs and then, at least in my field, there are entry level jobs that require several years experience.
How do you get the experience if you can’t even qualify for entry level jobs?
The mixture of the stress it puts on students pockets and the fact that degrees just aren’t as valuable as they once were means that students are going to have poor mental health.
College is not for everyone
17/18 year olds don’t know what they want
Mental health supports almost non existent
Agenda of getting huge number of college graduates worked to attract FDI but led to media frenzy around LC and college places which distorted reality.
A lot of/ some college degrees and diplomas are useless.
My previous employer dropped the requirement to have a business degree to be considered for a position. Now they’ll take anyone which sorta shows the way things will go. IMO a degree isn’t as important compared to 10/20 years ago and employers know they can just train people to do the job.
A big thing in my course at college was people picking the degree simply because it was good for jobs but it was a pretty difficult course.
Kids going to college are often massively uninformed about the contents of the degree program they are entering and the kind of skillset needed for the course.
Universities need to start introducing free aptitude courses for courses with high dropout rates for prospective students to try out and see if it’s the kind of material they want to study and/or have the capability for.
This stage in life, whether in college, training or an apprenticeship, used to be about taking risks and establishing yourself.
Get into a cheap flatshare or bedsit, have some craic, make new friends and learn things. If you messed up, you could go home—no big deal. Now, it’s a tightrope act that can seriously fuck young people’s prospects from the start if it goes wrong due to insane rent, COL and debt.
Of course mental health is in the toilet.
might the fact that they gave kids a pass on the Leaving Cert during COVID – or gave them grades their teachers said they deserved – inflate grades and land some people into courses they weren’t able for?
This is nothing new. I finished up in college about 25 years ago. I did an Electrical/Electronic Engineering Degree course. Hated every single second of it. But I persevered and got through it. Out of 160 in my class in 1st year around 30 of us managed to complete the course. A lot of drop outs and exam failure. Dublin University, everyone commuted in and out. There was no real student life or atmosphere. I lived off of £50 per week, £25 for rent, £5 to go home at weekends and that left me with £20 for food and socialising. 6 cans of McEwans Lager was £5 back then and a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 in the back pocket would get you a great night out for £10. Food for the week £10. I was in Galway with work last year as students were going back to college. They were eating out in restaurants. 😀 I couldn’t imagine eating out when I was in college. I couldn’t even afford the college canteen. Well I could have if I didn’t go out, but that Thursday night once a week was special. I worked hard over the summers to save and I always paid my own way for one semester. It was tough and I hated it. No central heating and shitty flats. But very affordable. Glad I went through it all now.
>When broken down by study area, dropout rates were highest for services (28 per cent)
What are ‘services’?
I never see social media use and chronic consumption of entertainment as a topic when it comes to young people’s mental health yet it’s a major part of the problem.
Being in your twenties used to be about trying out different things and see what works. Most people I know feel like they have to make their choice and stick to it. You work and maybe can afford to rent or you study and pray you make enough after to be able to rent. I do feel my right to choose has been removed. If I decide to leave my parents house I am sacrificing my mortgage deposit but I have to live in Waterford and commute to Dublin for the career I want- or simply change careers (settle) . If I decide to go to Dublin and rent I might make the career I want but I will never be able to get the money together for a deposit again. I feel like I’m being made to choose between having a home and having a career. Everyone says that the current costs are unsustainable but I’m old enough to remember that they’ve been saying that since I was still in school, how much longer do we wait? Living with your parents at 30 used to be something people were ashamed of, now having your own place at 30 is seen as a selfish bad financial decision.
Too everyone talking about housing crisis – that is definitely an element but not the only one.
Helicopter parenting plays a big part in this. I work with students dropping out, failing and in “academic crisis” in college. The number of parents who come in with their 21 year kids since Covid has exploded. There was always a % of pushing south Dublin Mommy who would try to get their son or daughter through a year with legal threats but the number of parents who are treating their adult children (19 20 year olds) like they are 14 is crazy.
A related factor is also that some students have never had to commute before college. meaning they never took a bus to get to education. Mammy drove them to the door of school. Commuting as a concept is genuinely new to them. And having to take 2 forms of public transport, no matter how long the commute is, seems to be an absolute deterrent to many students (in fairness it is to me too – we as Irish ppl hate mixed transport).
Also there has been a rental crisis for over a decade students have been living at home and not able to afford a car or motor bike of their own for at least 10 years if not 14 – these drop out rates are since 2019. Covid had an impact to ppl’s expectation of what college.
Year 1 students think when they arrive in week 1 of year 1 that there is nothing to do because the way 6th year was so scheduled and structured for them has given them a false sense of the world. They have zero initiative and zero self motivation to do anything – including having fun, dating, meeting new ppl. And this leads to severe isolation.
I would hate to be 18 right now the Gen Z culture is highly toxic and self defeating. The options open to me are fewer because we all have less options RN. But a major of them never had proper childhoods where they learned to be self starters and resilient. They were controlled and hyper shceduled by helicopter parents who have infantilized their adult children because it suits them for their kids never to grow up.
Generation snowflake.
The predicted grades for leaving cert during covid certainly didn’t help either.
Probably because so many students live in terrible situations either digs where you can’t have anyone over or with your parents. Long commutes as well. There was an [article](https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41311549.html) there a few weeks student accommodation being used to house asylum seekers. Like it all just takes its toll especially when you live far away from home. The financial stress only adds to it.
No shit Sherlock