Benjamin Farr Wheaton (UTS) and colleagues surveyed students at “a regional Australian university” and found good relationships with lecturers make them less-inclined to leave.

“Study mode, economic status and educational preparedness did not have a significant effect on student’s intention to leave university, when the impact of the student-lecturer learning relationship was accounted for,” they write in a paraphrase of their paper (which is behind an Elsevier journal paywall).

They conclude that “although many Australian universities are investing significant resources into student retention programmes centred around extracurricular activities what happens within lecture halls and in online learning engagement forums often remains on the periphery of attrition response initiatives.”

This may be because casual staff not paid enough to engage do a great deal of UG teaching.