Why do students drop out of high school before graduating? This is a very tough question; my research has shown me many different reasons for dropping out and many different reports and definitions of dropouts.

The reports on high school drop out rates vary widely, with different states and schools. The U.S Department of Education’s Department of Education Statistics (NCES) reports two types of drop out rates. The rates reflect the percent of students that drop out in a single year without completing high school, and the rates change by the percent of population in a given age group range who have not finished high school or who have not enrolled at the time. In 1998 the State Board of Education changed the definition of dropping out, adding students that leave high school to go and get their GED as dropouts. A total of 25,578 students dropped out of Oklahoma City Public High Schools last year (Thomas Jenolan). Which is no surprise because of t

The gap between dropouts and more educated people is widening as opportunities increase for high skill workers and all but disappear for the less skilled workers (Malcom X). In the last 20 years the earnings of dropouts doubled, while nearly tripled for college graduates. Recent dropouts will earn $ 200,000 less than high school graduates and over $ 800,000 less than college graduates in their lives. Also dropouts make up nearly half of households on welfare and prison population (Anonymous Prison Inmates).

The 25,578 students all had different reasons for dropping out of high school but I tried to narrow it down to six reasons:

The lives of most drop outs are related, 20% were married, living as married, or divorced, 40% had a child or were expecting one, 25% changed schools two or more times because of disciplinary reasons, 12% ran away from home, almost 20% were held back or failed a grade, half missed more than ten days of school a quarter, 11% were arrested, and 8% spent time in a juvenile home (Jamie Wells). Out of all the people I asked 9 out of 10 said that if they had the chance to go back and change there lives the thing that they would change would be staying in school.

So why do students drop out of high school? I think there are numbers of reasons for dropping out of school but most of all they see it as a way to get away from there problems, of course all there doing is creating more problems for themselves and their families in the FUTURE

Some topics in this essay:
Jimmy Rogenhein, Botstein American, Prison Inmates, Douglass School, Institution Passed”, Faheem Ahmad, Statistics NCES, Board Education, Thomas Jenolan, students school, Pregnancy Reasons, real world, popular students, reasons dropping, drop school, students drop, athletic students, teachers administrators, school drop, reasons dropping school, students graduate, school irrelevant lives, students drop school,