"College dropout rates" - I'm having trouble with my introducion.

Hopefully, someone can help me improve my introduction.

Introduction:
College dropout rates have increases dramatically in the past five years. Why has the dropout rate increases? Maybe college students have experienced stress from their school assignments. Also, they may have also experienced hardship from maintaining their job life and school life while trying to have a personal life. In my opinion, the dropout rates have increases because of college finance and difficultly, and college life is time consuming.

We need to know the type and purpose of this essay/paper. Is this a researched paper, in which you will cite actual information to support your views? Or will you be allowed to simply spout off opinions regardless of whether they are supported by facts? This matters. If this is to be a researched paper, then you need to do some research before writing your introduction. I suspect you will find that the combination of the economic downturn and tuition increases is to blame.


That's always been true, and thus cannot explain a change in the most recent five years.


Ditto.


Ditto, unless you can prove that college life has somehow become more time consuming. Have professors begun to give more assignments? Have graduation requirements changed?

It's not a researched paper.

College dropout rates have increased dramatically in the past five years. Why has the dropout rate increased ? Maybe college students have experienced stress from their school assignments. Also, they may have also experienced hardship from maintaining their job life , grades , and personal life. In my opinion, the dropout rates have increases because of college finance and difficultly, and college life is time consuming.

Your thesis sentence needs alot of work; it's the most important part of a paper so I'll leave that to you. Also, this is your essay so the reader knows anything without a source is your opinion and simply stating your opinion as a fact makes the paper seem stronger.

Here are some things that could possibly contribute, just guessing..
-increased financial hardship on the student
-greater tuition increases each year as colleges try to balance the budget

You could try and discover a tangible correlation with other things, but I'm doubtful
-Increased substance dependency in college students
-Increased depression in the past five years

From the motivated student struggling to balance huge workloads, to hard-partying frat boy, colleges have reported drastic dropout rates in the past five years that far surpass those of preceding decades.

You need something with a zing, because the beginning is monotonous. And just glancing at Simone's comment, all of your facts have been constant for ages.

Good luck with your revisions!

OK, so it's not a researched paper, but you still need to make sure your arguments make logical sense. So, you can only list reasons for the uptick in dropout rates that have themselves changed in recent years. These include the economy (going down) and tuition costs (going up). The economy going down could lead to increased drop-outs for two reasons: (a) students needing to work more hours to help support themselves and/or their families; and (b) students less able to afford tuition. Tuition costs going up compound that second reason. For an introduction, you could start by saying that times like this are when people most need a college education and, ironically, when people are most likely to drop out of school.

Ok, Is this by chance a cause-effect essay? Brainstorm for 10min. Reasons why you think the dropout rate is increasing. Come up with three reason and there you go.