Understanding university failure: zero-fails, COVID-19 and commencing student outcomes at an Australian university

Universities actively promote themselves to potential students, control admissions and deliver programs of study. For most students globally, there are financial costs to attending university. At the extreme end of failure are students who receive ‘zero-fails’: they enrol, do not submit any assessments, and receive a mark of 0 out of 100. A quantitative descriptive analysis was performed and provides student performance details for bachelor-level students enrolled in a large, regional Australian university from 2019–2021. At a unit level, zero-fails accounted for 20% of all failing grades. There was a significant increase in zero-fail grades in 2020 and 2021 compared to 2019. However, zero-fails are not entirely a COVID-19 phenomenon. Only 8% of students who received any zero-fail grade in their commencing semester of study continued onto their second semester and passed most of their units. We argue universities operating in countries with deferred payment schemes such as Australia and the United Kingdom have a responsibility to track unit failure in finer detail and consider ways to mitigate debt associated with students who are clearly not receiving value from their educational experience. This must be done as we continue to expand higher education opportunities to students from non-traditional backgrounds.