Extended stay at university: an application of multinomial logit and duration models

In Brazil, few studies have been devoted to proving the existence of and evaluating the internal inefficiencies of state universities. Such work, however, is highly important because state higher learning is free and a great amount of resources is involved in its maintenance. The objective of this study is to develop empirical models to permit an evaluation of the factors related to the decision to complete or abandon the course and to verify whether the duration of the connection to the university is also related to the same factors. Among the results obtained, the most important is that the prolonged stay at a state university favours students whose families could afford their schooling.