Purpose Graduation rates are commonly used to assess the quality of higher educational institutions. While universities strive to produce as many graduates as possible, maintaining the right balance between the number of new students enrolled and the number who graduate each year has become a challenge in the past few decades. Timely graduation is often disregarded because a large majority of the students do not graduate within the stipulated time. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors associated with timely degree attainment. Design/methodology/approach The data for this study were obtained from records maintained by Registrar Office, Prince of Songkla University, Pattani Campus, Thailand. The final sample comprised 1,330 undergraduate students enrolled at four major faculties in 2009. A multivariate logistic regression model was applied to explain the effects of independent variables on timely graduation. Findings About 81.0 percent had completed their degree program within the stipulated time. The results indicated that faculty, first-semester grade point average, gender and place of residence were significantly associated with timely graduation. Originality/value Findings from this study may serve as a guide to higher educational institutions in identifying the underlying factors, and accordingly develop programs to enhance on time degree completion rates.

Student dropout is a growing concern for educational institutions across the world and extensive research on this issue has been done in past few decades. In this study, we analyzed the determinants of student propensity to dropout at Prince of Songkla University, Pattani campus. The data comprised 10,377 students enrolled between the 2007 and 2011 academic years. Variables included in the analysis were admission year, faculty, gender-religion, first semester GPA and admission type. The overall dropout rate over the five-year period was 23.9%, and a decreasing trend in dropout rate was found from second semester and onwards. A logistic regression model was used to determine the effect of explanatory variables on dropout. The findings indicate that admission year, gender-religion, faculty and first semester GPA are strongly associated with student dropout.