The article deals with the problem of why many students enrolling in correspondence study do not complete the course. In the one-semester-hour courses nearly 13% of students did not submit even one lesson. The figures for the two- and three-hour courses were both over 20%. In the four-hour courses, nearly 32% do not submit the first lesson. A student in a one-hour course who submitted one lesson had an 85% chance of completing the course. Of students in two- and three-hour courses who submitted one lesson, over 70% went on to complete the course. Grade point averages (GPA) were not related to length of time taken to complete the course. The highest GPA's were earned by those who completed in one month; the next highest were earned by those who took over two years to complete the course. However, since this latter group comprised 13 students, no significance can be attributed to the finding. (nl)