Fewer students are dropping out of full-time college courses, Scottish Funding Council (SFC) figures reveal.

While the trend has been welcomed, the number of students who are failing to complete courses is still “deeply concerning”, the NUS Scotland students’ union has warned.

A quarter (25.5 per cent) of full-time further education students failed to complete their course in 2015-16, compared with 27.9 per cent in 2008-09, according to the SFC’s College Performance Indicators, published this week.

The number of students completing and passing their courses also rose last year, from 64 per cent in 2014-15 to 65.5 per cent.

The report said that, over the eight years since 2008-09, there had been a 6.7 percentage point increase in the success rate; the number of successful completions dipped in 2014-15, following successive year-on-year increases between 2008-09 and 2013-14.

Although the total number of further education students has seen a steady three-year decline, with 970 fewer enrolled last year, 2015-16 saw 4,758 more students successfully complete their courses than in 2008-09 - a 17 per cent increase, the report said.

‘Improving success rates’

Among students on higher education courses at colleges, success rates have increased to a lesser extent - by 8.3 per cent.

The report says: “As a result of increases in student numbers and improving success rates, 6,888 additional full-time HE students successfully completed their course in 2015-16 in comparison to 2008-09.”

The funding council stressed that there were a number of “positive reasons” for students to leave courses, such as gaining employment or moving onto another course.

But NUS Scotland has long argued the importance of other factors, including student support, funding and pressures such as care demands. Only last week, students met with MSPs to seek commitments to fairer funding for students in next month’s budget.

NUS Scotland president Vonnie Sandlan said: “While it’s been encouraging to see the number of early withdrawals declining in recent years, it’s deeply concerning to consistently see such a high percentage of college students failing to complete their course successfully, or having to withdraw from it altogether - often for reasons that are outside of their control.”

She said that, while some students left college early to move to positive destinations, too many were forced to leave due to financial hardships.

Ms Sandlan said: “If we truly want to see improvements in the number of students who are successfully completing their college courses, we need to see significant investment and fundamental reform to the system that supports them.”

She added that the current review of student support represented an opportunity to implement much-needed long-term reforms.

On Tuesday, the SFC also published the first college student satisfaction survey, which showed that about 90 per cent of full-time and 93 per cent of part-time students were satisfied with their college experience.

Expectations exceeded

Shona Struthers, chief executive of Colleges Scotland, said: “There is much more work to do to keep the figures going in the right direction, but these are solid achievements, particularly during what has been a time of significant change and reform in the college sector.”

A SFC spokesman added: “Where there is evidence of students leaving for more negative reasons, we work closely with individual colleges and with the sector to support better outcomes in the future.”