At present, one of the major issues and most interesting discussions within the European Higher Education Area is the rate of success in university-level study, and therefore the adaptation of today's university education system to society's requirements. Moreover, we have seen significant growth in distance education throughout recent decades, as this type of education takes on a stronger leadership role in countries that are experiencing severe economic crises. Because the National Distance Education University (UNED) is the most important distance university in Spain, and the Economics Degree program has been offered by the School of Economics and Business for the first time, we have attempted to find a correlation between variables which describe student characteristics (age, gender, employment status, manner of admission, and nationality) and success rates in order to determine the influence that these variables have and achieve a better understanding of student success rates.