A nursing shortage is looming in Canada (Canadian Nurses Association, 1997, November 4). It is imperative that as many students graduate from nursing school as possible in order to alleviate this problem. This purpose of this study was to discover the reasons for student attrition in a Canadian Baccalaureate School of Nursing. Tinto's model of 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.
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