The High Cost of High School Dropouts in Ohio
Introduction
One of the strongest predictors of a person's chances for living a healthy and prosperous life is their level of educational attainment. In Ohio, far too many of our high school students do not reach graduation, and spend the rest of their lives suffering the consequences. These individual consequences are well-known and have been well documented by researchers.
Among the findings, failing to graduate from high school:
Leads to lower lifetime earnings;
Increases the likelihood of unemployment;
Increases the likelihood of health problems;
Leads to higher rates of delinquency and incarceration;
Increases the risk of school-age pregnancy; and
Produces higher rates of broken-homes.
But
the failure of thousands of high school students to graduate every year
also has consequences for Ohio's government and society in general. The
National Governors Association describes the larger implications: "High
school success is more important than ever for the health of the
economy, for civic life, and to ensure equal opportunity."
More
specifically, the individual consequences described above lead to
increased public outlays for unemployment and welfare services, health
care, and police and correctional facilities. The reduced labor force
participation, employment rates, and average earnings for dropouts also
mean lower tax revenues to help offset the costs of providing these
services. In short, decreasing the number of high school dropouts in
Ohio can improve the standard of living for everyone, not just those
that get a diploma. Recent research into state graduation rates has
shown that most states tend to exaggerate their high school completion
rates. The result of these studies has been a renewed interest in
the accuracy of state reporting and efforts to build a better formula
for calculating graduation rates.
However, to this point no effort has been made to quantify the larger costs of Ohio's high school dropouts beyond the individual level. Without at least a rough idea of the larger costs that are imposed on Ohioans by the failure to get more students through high school, it is impossible to make accurate assessments of the efficacy of government programs designed to reduce dropout rates. Put another way, the value of dropout reduction programs are determined by comparing the costs of the programs against their benefits. Quantifying the larger societal benefits of reducing the number of high school dropouts thus makes such a comparison more accurate.
Read the full report here.
Matthew Carr is the former education policy director at the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy
Solutions.
