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Abstract
Using a rich panel data comprising 39,337 courses offered in the UPR-Bayamón during forty-one consecutive terms, this paper analyses the distribution of course withdrawals, estimating four parameters per course: the proportion of withdrawals and its variance, as well as the coefficients of skewness and kurtosis. Evidence suggests that the characteristics of courses, students, and, particularly, unobservable faculty heterogeneity exert a strong and statistically significant effect on these parameters over time and within academic fields. Faculty members and students engage in a shopping-around process where both parties improve their well-being at the expense of the academic standards and the quality of the education provided.
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