High school dropouts exact a huge toll

By WILLIAM L. BAINBRIDGE
SPECIAL TO THE VINDICATOR
For those who fail to graduate from high school, the economic losses are enormous. Over the course of a lifetime, the gap in earning potential between a high school dropout and a high school graduate is $260,000. The average shortfall in lifetime earnings for a dropout, when compared to a student who goes on to complete college, is well over a million dollars.
The current high school dropout crisis will exact a huge toll on these people. For our local and state economies, the losses are massive, too. According to the U.S. Department of Education, high school dropouts:
Contribute disproportionately to the unemployment rate (55 percent of young adult dropouts are employed, compared to 74 percent of high-school graduates and 87 percent of college graduates),
Provide about one-half of the taxes for state and federal coffers that high-school graduates provide (over a working lifetime, a dropout will contribute about $60,000 less),
Constitute 75 percent of state prison inmates and 59 percent of federal inmates, and are 3.5 times more likely to be incarcerated than graduates..
U.S. Department of Labor data indicate that if even 33 percent of current dropouts would graduate from high school, the federal government would save $10.8 billion each year in food stamps, housing assistance and temporary assistance for needy families.
Recent data released from the "Alliance for Excellent Education," a D.C.-based policy, research, and advocacy organization, indicate more than 1.2 million students in the U. S. didn't graduate from high school in 2004, the last year for which data are available. These numbers are going in the wrong direction. This is more than just another indictment of our public schooling process. According to the recent Alliance report, "High school dropouts cost the U.S. billions in lost wages and taxes." In the lifetimes of the dropouts, it will cost the nation $325 billion in lost wages, taxes and productivity. The report's author, Princeton University researcher Cecilia Rouse, indicates this figure does not even count the amount of higher earnings that would be realized if some of the students graduated and went on to higher education.
In Ohio, for example, of the 159,724 high school freshman in 2000, 112,925 graduated four years later. The lost lifetime earnings for Ohio's 2004 dropouts would equal $12 billion when compared to those who graduated from high school. This lost earnings estimation is based upon calculations in the 2005 project, "Labor Market Consequences of an Inadequate Education," also by Rouse.
Lower annual earnings
Rouse noted that, "those who do not complete high school are less likely to be employed and have significantly lower annual earnings than those with at least a high school degree, (and) they also contribute significantly less to tax revenues."
Policy leaders need to more carefully examine the dropout crisis including the reasons students are not completing high school. It is fraudulent to claim improved test scores in a student body if the bottom half of the class is encouraged to disappear. In order to be economically competitive in a global marketplace, our country needs a well-educated population. The economic value of good schools is proven to be in direct proportion to the education level of the workforce.
William L. Bainbridge of St. Augustine is Distinguished Research Professor for the University of Dayton and President & amp; Chief Executive Officer of SchoolMatch, a national educational auditing, research, and data organization.