Completing upper secondary school: Results from a ten-year longitudinal study in Norway

The completion of education is important both for the individual and society. High dropout rates from upper secondary school have been a national problem in Norway, and especially in northern Norway. Academic aptitude or grades (GPA) are important, but given the multifaceted nature of dropout, we conducted a longitudinal analysis to examine predictors of school completion after ten years. The study included 1676 students in Troms County (latitude 69 degrees north) starting in upper secondary education in 2010. We included a broad set of predictors related to school performance, psychological factors such as vulnerability, resilience, personality, and mental health, alongside demographic data. The mixture modeling revealed three completion trajectories: normal progression (40.1%), delayed completion (36.6%), and non-completion (23.3%). Correlation analyses showed significant relationships between completion and several of these predictors; however, in multinomial regression analyses, no variables beyond GPA significantly predicted the normal progression trajectory, whereas delayed completion was additionally accounted for by study track choice and self-perceived health, with GPA playing an even stronger role. This underscores the importance of prior school performance, but we also discuss the implications of the findings for the delayed-completion group.