With the expansion of higher education in Brazil from the implementation of Reuni, a
study is needed on the effect of the growth in the number of students enrolled in federal
universities on learning performance and dropout. This research aims to analyze the
effect of academic variables, such as failure in disciplines, and consequently student
attrition, of classes, on performance in the Specific Knowledge assessment of the
Enade 2018 for the courses of Administration, Accounting Science and Economics
through. To achieve these objectives, a descriptive analysis, Ordinary Least Squares
and finally, Multilevel Models were performed with the data from the Higher Education
Census and the microdata of the Enade 2018. The results of the models showed that
classes with higher rates of students exceeding the projected course time also showed
better performance, while failure at the beginning of the course and dropout negatively
influenced the grade.