Multiple enrolment could offer several benefits to students

University systems are very different across the globe. Tuition fees, enrolment processes, curricula, teaching, student course choices, university funding and many other factors differ from country to country. Some countries like Germany even have unique regulations in each federal state.

The ‘university culture’ of foreign higher education systems can sometimes be a problem for researchers and university managers. When trying to build on existing knowledge that was generated in higher education systems that stand in stark contrast to the local one, generalisability may not be a given and could lead to the development of measures for student performance that do not work because student behaviour is based on the unique framework of a university system.

The fact that university systems are not the same everywhere also creates the opportunity to learn from others to see what works well elsewhere in order to make improvements to your own system.

An academic analytics approach

To aid university governance, the field of ‘academic analytics’ is often defined as the discipline of visualising ‘big student data’. However, it is so much more than dashboards and data visualisation.

Research must often draw on a sample of students to research their behaviour and generalise the results to the population of students in a university system. In academic analytics, entire university databases can be accessed and utilised, shifting the focus away from samples to population research. These big datasets allow us to draw conclusions on a much larger scale, both in terms of the number of subjects and timeframe.

Recently, my research has focused on the phenomenon of parallel and multiple enrolments in the university system of Austria, using an academic analytics approach combined with psychology. Both big data and psychological research can paint a very good picture of the outcomes of the multiple enrolment policy in Austria.

In a series of papers I take a closer look at the outcomes of the country’s multiple enrolment policy and highlight the opportunities and risks for university governance.

Austrian system

In Austria, students do not pay tuition fees if they graduate within the minimum required time period plus a grace period of two additional semesters, for instance, six semesters for a bachelor programme plus a possible two more.

To ensure fast and efficient studying from governance and students’ perspectives, the university system has introduced more regulations for students and university managers that are tied to student performance.

Two main indicators of public university funding are: i) a workload threshold of 16 ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) credits per academic year (one ECTS credit = 25 real-time working hours); and ii) the number of graduates.

A minimum requirement of 16 credits is also needed at the end of the second academic year after enrolment. Otherwise, students are banned from enrolling on the same programme again.

None of these measures apply at the student level; they apply at the programme level because Austria allows for an unlimited number of simultaneous enrolments. This can mean that universities can increase their funding via students enrolling on multiple programmes and students can aim for multiple degrees.

Multiple enrolments

As the series of recent research papers shows, being enrolled in two or more parallel programmes can mean a heavier workload and more stress for students as well as a longer time to graduate as more than one curriculum needs to be completed.

To mitigate these disadvantages, the Austrian higher education system allows students to transfer passed exams from one programme to another if there are equivalents in the curricula. For instance, students who enrolled in chemistry and pharmacy only need to pass the general chemistry exam once, reducing some of the workload in the other curriculum.

However, this also means that students with very different discipline combinations, for example, law and geology, have a bigger workload if they want to graduate in both programmes.

Research suggests that most students treat their enrolments differently, for instance, concentrating on one programme more than on another. They may not plan on completing more than one curriculum and may see the multiple enrolment policy as a chance to try out different programmes before they settle on and finish one.

Unfortunately, the most common outcome is ‘dropout-dropout’ (of both programmes) and students with multiple enrolments have only around one-third the odds of graduation compared to single-programme students.

This is a challenge for the higher education system in Austria, since hardly any specific support measures exist for students in multiple enrolments. At the moment, it is not clear whether those students are undecided and perform worse than others because of this or whether the increased workload leads to worse performance and dropouts.

Unique opportunities

Despite the challenges university management and students may face in a higher education system with a multiple enrolment policy, there are also unique opportunities.

Beyond the obvious advantage of giving students the chance to obtain multiple degrees from different disciplines and diversifying their curricula vitae, enrolling in more than one programme can be an effective method of dropout prevention.

Although ‘dropout-dropout’ is the most common outcome, the group of students with the outcome constellation ‘graduation-dropout’ shows that being able to try out different fields represents a good chance for success.

Instead of dropping out of the university system completely after failing or losing interest in one programme, they can switch their focus to another, transfer the exams they already passed and finish the new one. Some students may even strategically enrol in a second or third programme which they drop along their way to graduation, using it as a base to take courses of interest from other fields.

Since past research suggests that college dropouts have higher chances in the labour market, ie, ‘some college’ is better than none, it makes sense that multiple enrolment graduates who drop out of one programme also have advantages over single-programme graduates, as their skillset can be more diverse. This diversification of their curriculum vitae is one of the reasons people report for enrolling in joint degree programmes.

Although the multiple enrolment policy is different from joint degree studies, students may share the same motivations to choose such a career path.

A supportive framework

Multiple enrolments are a new topic of interest in the higher education community, but there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered. For instance, suitable support measures need to be developed and tested, labour market performance needs to be evaluated and the reasons for dropping out of multiple programmes and evidence about other differences between single- and multiple-enrolment students are lacking.

University systems seeking to adopt a multiple enrolment policy should be aware of the advantages and disadvantages this brings for university management and students. It is important that the overall framework and regulations are supportive for students with multiple enrolments.

Some reasons why multiple enrolments are such a common phenomenon in Austria are related to the absence of tuition fees and the grace period for graduation. Such a policy should only be introduced after first setting up a supportive framework for students.

Dr Alexander Karl Ferdinand Loder is a data scientist with a focus on strategic data analyses in the performance and quality management department of the University of Graz, Austria. His research is centred on ‘big student data analytics’, combining the disciplines of academic analytics and psychology. His current works include research on parallel and multiple enrolments, methods in academic analytics and student behaviour prediction as well as student health.

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.