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 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.
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What happened to the High Schools?.
Many high schools in America fall short in preparing young adults for the real world. Leon Botstein's essay, "High School, an Institution Whose Time Has Passed,"" explains what is wrong with today's high school and why America should eliminate these outdated schools. Botstein has some very good points on how the community and the administrators seem to favor the more athletic and popular students. However, Botstein's idea of graduation at the age of 16 is a nave proposal; the solution should involve changing how teachers, administrators, and coaches set different standards to students based on popularity and sport participation. .
According to Leon Botstein, the American high school does not serve the same purpose as it did years ago.