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“If you think dropping out is mainly an individual choice and that those who left school are paying a personal price for a bad decision, think about the consequences for the community.”
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One third of all students who enter high school don’t graduate |
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Every nine seconds in America, a student becomes a dropout. Two-thirds of inmates in state prisons are dropouts |
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Dropouts comprise nearly 1/2 the heads of households on welfare |
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Each year’s new class of dropouts will cost more than $200 billion over the course of their lifetimes |
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Each year high school graduation classes in Texas have 120,000 fewer students than started high school |
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Workers 18 and over with a bachelor’s degree earn an average of $51,206 a year, while those with a high school diploma earn $27,915; those without a high school diploma average $18,734 according to the U. S. Census Bureau |
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Dropouts are three times more likely to live in poverty |
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The lower wages of dropouts mean $36 billion in state and local funding is lost each year |
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Nearly 80% of dropouts depend on the government for health care assistance |
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Many schools don’t have as much money to spend on dropout intervention as it will cost to keep even one of their dropouts in prison for a year according to educational researcher Gary Orfield |
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