Professor Chang says that rather than losing mainly students from
disadvantaged backgrounds or with lackluster records, the attrition rate can be
higher at the most selective schools, where he believes the competition
overwhelms even well-qualified students.
"What accounts for the high attrition rates? Maybe some of it has to do with aptitude, or encouragement, or good role models and mentors. But Philip Babcock, an economist at the University of California, Davis, suggests that a lot of it has to do with homework.
Professor Babcock has written extensively about college students' evolving study habits (or lack thereof) over the last 50 years. He found that in 1961, full-time students spent about 40 hours each week in class and studying. By 2003, they were investing about 27 hours a week".
But then, we did not have Facebook, Twitter and Videogames in 1961 :-)