Only 1 in ten German students drop out of master's program

Only one in ten of German students who started the master's program in 2010 have left university without a master's degree, new calculations of the German Centre for Higher Education and Scientific Research (DZHW) showed on Friday. On behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Education, DZHM also showed in the new calculations that the dropout rate at the University of Applied Sciences was only 7 percent. In Germany, a good 95 percent of master's students, who started the study in mathematics or science in 2010, have got their final degree at the University, while the dropout rate of University of Applied Sciences in the same subjects is as low as 3 percent. "The progress has also been a success for the higher education policy of the federal government," said German Education Minister Johanna Wanka. "We have supported the university with numerous initiatives such as the Higher Education Pact and the Teaching Quality Pact, in order to assist more young people on their way to successful completion of a degree," Wanka said. By calculating the dropout rate based on the graduating class in 2012, the DZHW has conducted an extensive differentiated calculation for master's degree graduates for the first time. "These values represent an important benchmark for universities. They allow conclusions on the conditions and problems of the study in the different study types and subject groups," said Ulrich Heublein, investigator of the study at DZHW.