Higher education is one of the ways to overcome social inequalities in rural areas in developing countries. This has led states to develop public policies aimed at access, retention and timely graduation of students in those sectors, yet the high drop-out rates among the rural student population, which were catalysed by COVID-19, prevent the intrinsic and extrinsic benefits of obtaining a higher education degree from materialising. Thus, the study of the phenomenon of dropout before and after the pandemic has not sufficiently addressed the economic issues raised by this phenomenon for the different actors at the educational level. The purpose of this paper is to model the economic effects of rural student dropout at the higher education level for students and families, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the State, based on public policies for access to higher education, in the pandemic and post-pandemic scenario. In order to delimit the operationalisation of the proposed model, a set of undergraduate training programmes in Colombia was taken as a reference. System dynamics was used as the main modelling technique. The model was based on data from the 20 training programmes with the highest number of students enrolled in rural areas for the year 2019, by running three computational simulations. The results showed the description of the dynamic model and the financial effects of dropout for the actors of the educational level with the current policies of access to higher education, the scenario in which COVID-19 would not have occurred and the consolidation of the public policy of tuition fee exemption in public HEIs as a result of the pandemic. It was concluded that the model developed is very useful for the valuation of these economic effects and for decision-making on policies to be implemented, given that the costs of dropout are characterised by high costs for students and their families as well as for HEIs, and where it was determined that current policies are inefficient in preventing and mitigating dropout.

The growing dropout and low permanence of rural students in higher education has become a central problem in the education system, both affecting the quality conditions of training programmes and preventing the materialisation of the benefits that achieving this educational level entails for society. However, the study of these events in rural populations is scarce, resulting in an inadequate treatment of dropout and, consequently, the impossibility of consolidating student permanence. Thus, the aim of this article is to identify which individual, academic, socio-economic, and institutional variables influence the dropout and the retention of the rural student population in higher education. To achieve this purpose, a cross-sectional study was defined. The sample used was a non-probabilistic sample with an n of 269 rural Colombian students who were administered a self-report questionnaire that assessed 59 variables. Data analysis was based on means comparison and cluster modelling. The results show that dropout and permanence in rural students is related to the educational level of the father, family and work obligations, the need to move from their place of residence, the academic average in higher education, satisfaction with the choice of programme, communication with the institution, and the attention of teachers, among other things.

Education can be seen as a driver for social development because people with a higher level of education can access a better income and a better quality of life. The Colombian state has proclaimed various public policies that guarantee this right, especially for rural populations that face more disparities resulting from the internal armed conflict and drug trafficking, among other issues. The purpose of this article is to describe the evolution of public policies for access to rural higher education in Colombia, as well as the starting point of the policies implemented. An interpretative method was adopted to consider the purpose of public policies from various perspectives. The results show that education can be perceived as one of the ways in which states can overcome social disparities in rural areas, which would mean different public policies for access, permanence, and timely graduation to higher education.

La deserción limita los beneficios personales y sociales de la educación. En este sentido, los estados e instituciones educativas buscan prevenir y mitigar este fenómeno mediante el desarrollo de políticas públicas e institucionales, sin embargo, la complejidad del fenómeno es tal, que estas políticas son insuficientes y no se encuentran del todo articuladas con las realidades de los estudiantes, de ahí que persistan las elevadas tasas de deserción. Así, el objetivo del presente artículo fue establecer las causas de la deserción estudiantil en la educación superior rural a partir de un modelo conceptual basado en pensamiento sistémico a partir de las narrativas de un grupo de estudiantes colombianos. Para su cumplimiento se realizó un estudio cualitativo, en el que participaron 19 estudiantes. El análisis se realizó mediante codificación abierta para la identificación de variables que incidían en este fenómeno educativo, y se finalizó con un modelo basado en diagrama de bucles causales. Los resultados evidenciaron que las obligaciones laborales y familiares, la condición financiera del estudiante y el rol de los docentes son las variables más recurrentes en los participantes. Finalmente, a partir de las variables encontradas y el modelo, se proponen acciones que deben ser incorporadas en el marco de las políticas públicas e institucionales para prevenir y mitigar el fenómeno de la deserción.

Pediatric tuberculosis is a serious infectious disease and a hidden global epidemic. The objective of this study was to describe the epidemiological situation of tuberculosis mortality in children under 15 years of age in Colombia in the period 2010–2018. A longitudinal descriptive study was conducted. The variables sex, age groups, and origin were studied. This study had 260 cases for analysis and was carried out in three phases. The first phase was the determination of the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. The second phase was the construction of indicators by territorial entities. The third phase was stratification into four epidemiological situations according to the mortality rate and years of life lost. The median age was 7 years (range 0–1 4), 66.5% of cases were pulmonary tuberculosis (97,7% without bacteriological confirmation), 14.3781 years of life lost were recorded (95% CI: 142.811–168.333), and in children under 10–14 years, the loss was 110,057. Amazonas had the highest adjusted YLL rate (3979.7). In total, 36,4% of the territories had a high mortality, and 30,3% adjusted to the situation designated as 1. This is the first study that has used composite indicators to address the problem of premature mortality from childhood tuberculosis in Colombia. Our results allow us to specify that this disease remains a challenge for public health. It requires models of care and differential strategies by region. It also requires ensuring opportunities in diagnosis with sensitive methods, as well as intersectoral work for the optimal approach.