The dissociation of university studies. A comparative analysis of socioeconomic indicators

Abstract

This work offers a comparative analysis of several achievements associated with the socioeconomic well- being of students who dropped out of the university school system with the achievements of students who completed their degrees or who graduated from tertiary education. The author’s hypothesis is that theincomplete passage through university studies can offer tools that help to improve the socioeconomicposition compared to the students who have not been enrolled at the university, although this position does not catch up the attainments of student who actually completed their degree. The achievements that have been taken into account as indicators of socioeconomic wellbeing were the following ones: existence or absence of overcrowding at home, possession of certain comfort elements, monthly incomes and possession of a house or apartment. The author used the multiple correspondence analysis method to determine whether the variables of comfort elements made up a dimension or not and the analysis of va- riance methodology in order to study the variation of the average comfort and average incomes betweenthe study categories, and finally a comparison test of proportions to analyze the relationship betweenthe categories of study and gender. The results were consistent with the hypothesis that was put forward.