Dive Brief:

• A study shows that less than 5% of students who dropped out of community college two or more times succeeded in getting a four-year degree.
• Stopping an education twice may be hazardous, but doing it once is very common: The study reports that 94% of the students had at least one "period of non-enrollment."
• About half of the students who stopped eventually returned to school and 30% of those eventually earned bachelor's degrees.

Dive Insight:

The study's author has a blunt takeaway: "If you stop out twice, you're not going to finish." Toby Park, an assistant professor at Florida State University, said he suspects many successful students use that first "break" to reassess their goals. But once they go beyond that, it could mean they're having too much trouble juggling work and education.