A nursing shortage is looming in Canada (Canadian Nurses Association, 1997, November 4). It is
inperative that as many students graduate from nursing school as possible in order to alleviate this
problem. This purpose o f this study was to discover the reasons for student attrition in a
Canadian Baccalaureate School of Nursing. Tinto’s model o f college student attrition was
applied as the conceptual framework. A Nursing Student Attrition Survey was completed by
forty student persisters and nineteen student leavers. Comparisons between the two samples
revealed significant differences in that older students, students from urban areas, and students
whose mothers and fathers had less post-secondary education were more likely to leave the
program of study prior to graduation. The same was found true for students with lower level
intentions, goal and institutional commitment, and students with more external commitments.
Students persisters were found to feel better about their academic performance and felt that they
had more positive peer group interactions than did the student leavers
