We examine the mechanisms explaining the dropout intentions of students with disabilities by integrating Tinto’s model of student integration, the student attrition model, the composite persistence model, and insights from social stratification research. The resulting theoretical model posits that not only students’ academic and social integration, but also their private resources (financial, home learning, and personal resources) are crucial for academic success. Analysing data from a 2020 Germany-wide student survey, we find that students with disabilities are substantially more likely to intend to drop out of higher education than students without disabilities. Linear regressions and Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions show that their lower academic integration and fewer personal resources are most relevant for explaining this difference, while their lower social integration, home learning, and financial resources play subordinate roles. Further analyses reveal that dropout intent is highest among students with psychic disabilities, followed by students with learning disabilities and students with physical disabilities. Regarding all three disability groups, less academic integration and fewer personal resources are most relevant for explaining their higher dropout intent (compared to students without disabilities). However, the disability groups differ regarding the importance of the different explanatory factors. Overall, our results highlight the importance of considering both students’ integration into higher education and their private resources for understanding student-group-specific dropout intent.

我们通过整合 Tinto 的学生融合模型、学生流失模型、复合坚持模型和社会分层研究的见解，研究了解释残疾学生辍学意图的机制。由此产生的理论模型认为，不仅学生的学业和社会融入，而且他们的私人资源（财务、家庭学习和个人资源）对于学业成功至关重要。通过分析 2020 年全德国学生调查的数据，我们发现残疾学生比无残疾学生更有可能辍学。线性回归和北川-瓦哈卡-布林德分解表明，他们较低的学术整合度和较少的个人资源与解释这种差异最相关，而他们较低的社会整合度、家庭学习和财务资源则起次要作用。进一步的分析显示，有精神残疾的学生的辍学意愿最高，其次是有学习障碍的学生和有身体残疾的学生。对于所有三个残疾群体，较少的学术整合和较少的个人资源最能解释他们较高的辍学意愿（与无残疾的学生相比）。然而，残疾群体在不同解释因素的重要性方面存在差异。总体而言，我们的结果强调了考虑学生融入高等教育及其私人资源对于了解学生群体特定辍学意图的重要性。