More than 764,000 students have dropped out of school this year alone according to 26seconds.com! Yes you read right that’s nearly 800,000 students without an education! This is truly a terrible epidemic and rightfully a top cause we are focused on here at BCG! Increasing High School Graduation Rate Significantly Boosts Job Creation, Home Ownership, and Car Sales according to a study performed by the Alliance for Excellent Education!
Cutting the high school dropout rate in half for just one class would likely lead to billions of dollars in increased earnings, provide a boost to home and automobile sales, and create more than 50,000 new jobs nationwide, according to a ground-breaking new study released today by the Alliance for Excellent Education.
“The best economic stimulus is a high school diploma,” said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia. “From the individual student to the bank branch manager, new car salesman, or realtor, everyone wins when more students graduate from high school.”
These findings, contained in “Education and the Economy: Boosting the Nation’s Economy by Improving High School Graduation Rates,” demonstrate, for the first time, the economic benefits the nation—as well as each state—would likely see if its number of high school dropouts was cut in half. This publication, which was made possible through the generous support of State Farm®, builds on the Alliance’s previous work examining education and the economy and provides clear evidence that in an information-age economy, education is the only currency. (To access the national findings as well as findings for individual states, visit the Alliance’s website at http://www.all4ed.org/publication_material/EconStates.)
Nationwide, an estimated 1.3 million students dropped out from the Class of 2010 without earning a diploma. Cutting this number in half would yield 650,000 “new” high school graduates who would likely make additional contributions to the nation’s economy by:
• spending $19 billion more on home purchases than what they would likely spend without a diploma;
• supporting 54,000 jobs and increasing the gross domestic product by as much as $9.6 billion by the time they reach the midpoint of their careers;
• earning $7.6 billion more in an average year, compared to their likely earnings without a high school diploma;
• spending an additional $5.6 billion and investing an additional $2 billion in an average year;
• boosting state tax revenues by $713 million in an average year; and
• spending an additional $741 million in an average year purchasing automobiles.
These dollar amounts represent economic returns from cutting the dropout rate for only one high school class. Increasing the graduation rates for future classes would create cumulative benefits that would be exponentially greater.
According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, a high school dropout earned an average of $21,023 in 2008, compared to $31,283 for a high school graduate and $58,613 for an individual with a bachelor’s degree. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Labor, high school dropouts are over three times more likely to be unemployed than are college graduates.
The economic model used to generate this report was developed by the Alliance for Excellent Education in partnership with Economic Modeling Specialists, Inc.
The complete report, which includes national and state findings, is available at http://www.all4ed.org/publication_material/EconStates.
The Alliance for Excellent Education is a Washington, DC-based policy, research, and advocacy organization that works to make every child a high school graduate who is prepared for postsecondary education and success in life. For more information about the Alliance, please visit www. http://www.all4ed.org/
Two Cause Organizations we love that are taking action against preventing High School Droppout Rates are 26Seconds.com and Get Schooled!
