This paper utilises the national "Survey of Disability Ageing and Carers" to summarise the educational disadvantages and vocational inequalities for those with disabilities in Australia. Amongst persons with a disability, there is a decidedly lower rate of school completion. Distinctly fewer persons with a disability obtain degrees.…

More than one third of college students in the US do not complete their college education. Through panel data methods and principal component regression analysis, this study examines the effect of different reasons for college enrollment on academic performance, educational outcomes and future planning. The findings suggest that students who…

Socioeconomic status (SES), a variable combining income, education, and occupation, is correlated with a variety of social health outcomes including school dropout rates, early parenthood, delinquency, and mental illness. Several studies conducted in the 1970s and 1980s largely failed to report a relationship between SES and hemispheric asymmetry…

High school dropouts adversely impact the state of Tennessee each year--financially and socially. Dropouts' lower incomes, high unemployment rates, increased need for medical care, and higher propensity for incarceration create a virtual vortex that consumes Tennesseans' tax dollars at a vicious rate. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on…

This report analyzes the economic and social costs of the high school dropout problem in California from the perspective of a state taxpayer. The authors' analysis considers the consequences of this problem in terms of labor market, tax revenue, public health, and incarceration costs. The authors' quantification of these costs reveals the sizeable…

For 24 consecutive years, the Public Policy Forum has compiled and analyzed data from southeastern Wisconsin's public school districts in order to better inform policymakers and the public about the effectiveness of the region's K-12 education system. This analysis of the 2009-10 academic year, like many of the previous reports, indicates cause…

This study documents the public costs of high school dropouts in Georgia, and examines how policies that increase school choice, such as the recently-enacted tuition tax credit scholarship program will provide large public benefits by increasing public school graduation rates. The study calculates the annual cost of Georgia dropouts caused by…

State and local education officials in New Jersey tout the state's high school graduation rate as the highest in the nation. At the same time, independent research indicates that 40 percent of students in Newark drop out and only half of African-American students in urban districts graduate. Meanwhile, there is increasing concern in New Jersey…

Research has documented a crisis in Texas high school graduation rates. Only 67 percent of Texas students graduate from high school, and some large urban districts have graduation rates of 50 percent or lower. This study documents the public costs of high school dropouts in Texas and examines how school choice could provide large public benefits…

There is a divide in Maryland's schools. Although the state's high school graduation rate is above the national average, its urban school districts have suffered from years of decline. In 2007, the Baltimore city school district's graduation rate was only 35 percent, compared to 81.5 percent in Baltimore's suburbs and 76 percent statewide. The…

This report examines high school education in Colorado, noting the high (and underreported) level of student attrition and the achievement of those who remain. Over 40 percent of Colorado's high school students never graduate. About 15 percent of this attrition can be accounted for by published dropout statistics. Actual attrition rates, however,…

An analysis of the 1981 high school graduating class in Mississippi suggests that greater earnings for students and increased state revenues from income and sales taxes would result if the dropout rate could be reduced to the national average of 10 percent. Subtracting from the total first-grade enrollment (1969-70) both the number of 1981 private…

This report analyzes economic and demographic characteristics of Arizona's Hispanic population. In 1980 Arizona ranked fourth among the states in Hispanic concentration (16.2%) and eighth in total number of Hispanics. More than 45% of Arizona's Hispanics lived in Maricopa County. Almost 90% had their ancestral origins in Mexico, but 82% were born…

Students who drop out of high school before graduating are of concern to families, educators, and policymakers. To obtain information on the scope of the dropout problem, three sources of national data were reviewed: (1) the Bureau of the Census' Current Population Survey; (2) the Center for Statistics' Common Core of Data; and (3) the Center for…

This report examines the progress in human capital development made by counties in the South during the 1980s. County-level data from 13 southern states were collected primarily from the 1980 and 1990 censuses. Thirteen maps depict, at the county level, completion of high school or more in 1980 and 1990, percent change in high school completion…