Authors: Mridulaxika, Gurpreet Singh, Varuna Tyagi
Abstract: Student dropout is a persistent challenge in higher education, leading to academic, financial, and institutional losses. Accurate early prediction of at-risk students can significantly improve retention through timely interventions. This paper presents a comparative analysis of three ensemble-based machine learning models AdaBoost, Gradient Boosting Machine (GBM), and a proposed Advanced Extreme Gradient Boosting (ADVXGBoost) algorithm for predicting student dropout risk. The models were evaluated using a dataset of 5,000 student records containing demographic, academic, and behavioral attributes. Performance was assessed using 10-fold stratified cross-validation in the WEKA Explorer environment. Experimental results demonstrate that ADVXGBoost outperforms AdaBoost and GBM, achieving the highest accuracy of 90.76%, the lowest error rates, and balanced class-wise prediction. The findings confirm the effectiveness of enhanced boosting techniques for reliable student dropout prediction and decision-support systems in educational institutions.