In the Netherlands, 39% of higher professional education students and 26% of university students do not continue to the second year of the study program they had initially started (Van den Broek et al., 2014). In Flanders, only 40% of the first-year students completely succeeded for all registered courses (Flemish Government, 2008). Students’ first year in higher education seems to be a crucial period, as evidence was found that students who gained a small number of credits in the first year of higher education had a longer time to graduation or were more likely to drop out (Flemish Government, 2014). This leads to substantial costs for governments and students, which makes study success in higher education a well-researched topic. Despite this, there is not yet a clear idea on which factors specifically matter in the Dutch and Flemish context. Moreover, the research is quite fragmented. This study systematically reviews factors that are crucial in explaining GPA and persistence. Aims of this study are: (1) to obtain an overview of predictors of achievement and persistence in Dutch and Flemish higher education; (2) to provide higher education institutes with recommendations for improving first-year students’ success; (3) to identify limitations in the current research, in order to make recommendations for future research. Research articles were searched through several databases. If they met all inclusion criteria, they were included in the analysis and were coded by the authors. For this, a coding scheme was developed and adapted until sufficient interrater agreement was reached. After having coded the articles, an overview of factors was created in which comparable variables were grouped together. The included articles had different foci, varying from student background characteristics, cognitive factors and non-cognitive factors to institutional factors. We found that next to previous GPA, behavioral and psychological variables such as study time, self-efficacy, motivation, and conscientiousness are consistently important. Gaps in the research are that many studies focus on one program at one university, which limits the generalizability of the results of individual studies. Next, the same concepts were operationalized and measured in varying ways. In order to advance research on study success in Dutch and Flemish higher education, it is important to build on a more unequivocal theory and use comparable conceptualizations and methods. This uniformity will make it easier to use scientific knowledge on study success to improve educational practices in the first year of higher education.

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