Tackling a High Drop Out Rate

Every school day, almost 7,000 students drop out of school. Over the course of one year, nearly 1.2 million students will leave school without a high school diploma. Without this passport to future success, most of these individuals will spend their life in a state of uncertainty – periodically unemployed or on government assistance. Many will cycle in and out of prison. But the cost is not just to the individual who drops out. In fact, the Alliance for Excellent Education estimates that the 1.2 million students who did not graduate from high school in 2006 will cost the nation more than $309 billion in lost wages, taxes, and productivity over their lifetimes.

Earlier this week, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) introduced the Graduate for a Better Future Act, a piece of legislation that offers new hope to the six million students throughout the nation who have yet to drop out, but are at a high risk of doing so. If enacted, Senator Burr’s bill would create early warning systems in high schools that identify students who are at risk of dropping out and provide them with the additional help they need to get back up to speed and on track to graduate with their classmates.

In an effort to ensure that high school graduates are qualified for life after high school, the bill would work to align high school requirements with college expectations. It would also create a college guidance program that would ensure that all students and their parents are regularly notified about a student’s progress toward his or her diploma. As part of that process, parents and students would receive information about college entrance requirements and instructions on how to apply to college and submit requests for scholarships and other financial aid.

This country has a choice. Invest in students now and reap the benefits of higher tax revenues and lower social costs, or pay for them in the future in the form of lower tax revenue, higher prison costs, and increased spending on social programs such as welfare and Medicaid. Were Congress to pass the Graduate for a Better Future Act, it would be an important first step toward moving high school dropouts from the expense column on the nation’s balance sheet to the asset column.