High School Graduation Rates

Consequences of dropping out include increased chances of being in poverty, being unemployed, being on public assistance, being in prison or on death row, being divorced, or being a single parent according to a 2006 study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation called The Silent Epidemic, erspectives of High School Dropouts. On average, high school dropouts earn $9,200 less per year than high school graduates, and about one million dollars less over a lifetime than college graduates. Dropouts were three times more likely than college graduates to be unemployed in 2004, 40% of dropouts receive some type of government assistance, and dropouts are eight times more likely to be in jail or prison than a high school graduate.

*Graduates are the count of individuals who: 

 

General Education Development Test (GED) recipients are not counted as graduates.