Over the last decade, between 347,000 and 544,000 10th- through 12th-grade students left school each year without successfully completing a high school program Status dropout rates represent the proportion of young people ages 16 through 24 who are out of school and who have not earned a high school credential. Status rates are higher than event rates because they include all dropouts in this age range, regardless of when they last attended school. (NCES, 2002). The purpose of this article is to examine the reasons why students drop out and possible solutions. Findings suggest that students from career academies have higher academic achievement upon leaving high school, less need for remediation in English at the university, and a 4 percentage-point increase in graduation from the university than students who are not from academies (Naylor, 2004).