Stephanie Brown
Contributor
The Navigator

Although the financial aspect of university can be stressful for first time students there are many pressures faced in the first year of university that cause students to drop out.

Statistics Canada selected a group of students in 1999 and tracked their education until 2005, 16% of the students in the study in universities specifically dropped out before graduation. AJ Laing is a returning student to VIU who had a rough start to his university career a few years ago.

When asked if he believed if it was the financial aspect of university that causes students to drop out before they are more in debt he answered that it could be a factor but that in his opinion it is when students come into university and it is not as easy as they expected or even just not the atmosphere they expected.

For Laing it was the course load that originally sent him packing. “I was sick one day and when I came back I was behind by so much I stopped going and it snow balled out of control” said Laing. He attempted to return to VIU for media studies, his third idea of a major, but because he got wait listed in so many courses he just took a year off.