Do Students without a General Qualification for University Entrance Show Lower Academic Performance? Findings from a Quantitative Case Study

Since 2009, German universities have been open to vocationally qualified applicants without the school-leaving qualification traditionally required for university entrance ("Abitur"). This paper investigates the extent to which these non-traditional students differ in regard to academic performance from traditional students who have attained the "Abitur". Hypotheses about differences in performance are derived from three assumptions: competence differences due to different educational backgrounds, cultural closure of the academic field to students of lower socio-economic origin, and differences in students' living conditions. We used data from up to 1,142 undergraduate students in one department at a German university to test our hypotheses. The analyses show that non-traditional first-year students pass a lower proportion of their courses (by 8.4 percentage points), have a lower probability of graduating within nine semesters (down 19.9 percentage points), and receive poorer final grades than persons with general university entrance qualifications (0.15 grade points lower).