What risks do dropouts face?
Our nation’s dropout rates are particularly alarming, because in today’s society there are few employment opportunities that pay living wages, and benefits are rare for those who have neither completed a high school education nor acquired necessary basic skills. On average, youth who drop out are more likely than others to experience negative outcomes such as unemployment, underemployment, and incarceration. High school dropouts are 72% more likely to be unemployed as compared to high school graduates (U.S. Department of Labor, 2003). Nearly 80% of individuals in prison do not have a high school diploma (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1995). According to the National Longitudinal Transition Study of special education students, the arrest rates of youth with disabilities who dropped out were significantly higher than those who had graduated (Wagner et al., 1991). Three to five years after dropping out, the cumulative arrest rate for youth with serious emotional d
