ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with theoretical approaches to non-completion in which the work of Tinto is prominent and shows that theory stands in need of further development. There then follow three sections devoted to empirical studies. The first of these is an overview of the vast literature from the United States, the second deals with the much more slender set of studies from the United Kingdom and the third reports a number of studies from other parts of the world. The final section extracts from this disparate literature a number of general conclusions regarding the causes of non-completion.
