More university students in Australia complete degrees

New research on Monday showed over the past few years here are an increasing number of Australian university students successfully completing their degrees. According to a study by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), just 72 percent of students enrolled in 2005 completed the bachelor degrees, while in 2008 the completion rate was 80 percent. According to ACER Senior research fellow Julie McMillan, while these were positive results, there was still scope for improvement. "There is considerable variation among institutions, with retention rates for commencing bachelor degree students ranging from 60 percent to 94 percent in 2009," she said in a statement on Monday, adding that it was important to develop appropriate retention strategies to help those students who did not complete. ACER found the most common reasons students had for discontinuing study relate to health and personal factors, as well as their courses not meeting personal expectations. The federal government earlier said they were planning to take measures to help increase the number of low socio-economic status groups' students achieving bachelor degrees.