Are You Thinking about Dropping Out of High School?

Well, consider these facts…..

• High school dropouts have a life span that is nine years shorter than people who graduate.
• Dropouts are more likely to face poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
• Typically high school dropouts earn $19,000 a year. High school graduates earn $28,000.
• Nationally, 68 percent of state prison inmates are dropouts.

Anthony White is a 17-year-old Berrien County Jail inmate. He quit high school just two weeks before he spoke to ABC News from the jailhouse. He was arrested for allegedly firing a gun in the air just three days after he quit school.

"I felt like I was grown," White said. "Nobody could tell me not to make my own decision. That's how I felt at the time."
But White said, "Now I wish I would've listened."

Sheriff Jerry Brogdon of Berrien County, Ga., sees those consequences every day at the Berrien County Jailhouse. He said that "81.2 percent of the inmates we have in here today is high school dropouts."

Their Regrets…..
One 17-year-old male in our focus groups put it simply, “It’s important to get an education to do well in life.”

A male from Philadelphia said, “… I would tell him like, I haven’t finished high school. I don’t have a diploma. I don’t have a job. I am broke …. You can’t make it without that. You can’t go anywhere, for real, on the legal side…. If you go to school, get your diploma, you can do more things the right way. You might succeed.”

Are you still thinking about dropping out of high school...well keep on reading

1. Take a look at the lives of high school dropouts after the big D. A high school dropout earns nearly $10,000 less a year than someone with a diploma. That adds up. Over a lifetime, high school dropouts make about $1 million less than college grads.
2. That’s just the beginning. High school dropouts are about three times more likely than college graduates to be unemployed. They are about twice as likely as high school graduates to live in poverty.
3. They are eight times more likely to go to prison than a high school graduate.
4. Dropouts were over three times more likely than college graduates to be unemployed.
5. Dropouts are much more likely than high school graduates to get divorced and to be single parents of children who also drop out from high school. They even get sick a lot more often than people who have diplomas!

Dropping out of high school is not a life most of us would choose.

You've had it with boring classes… your teacher acts more like a cop than a teacher…school’s got nothing to do with real life …you need to make money.

There are lots of reasons why people quit school. If some of these complaints sound familiar, maybe you’re even thinking about it yourself. After all, why waste time sitting in front of a chalkboard when you could be out in the world doing something?

Wait a moment. Even though you may have many good reasons to leave school (family problems and money issues, included), if you choose this path, you’ve chosen a hard life. High school dropouts nearly universally come to regret their decision.

A 19-year-old female said of dropping out, “I wouldn’t make the same decision. I would stay in school.” A female from Baltimore put it succinctly, “I think it’s one of the worst regrets of my life.”

Basically, dropping out is the fastest way to limit your life options, just at a time when most of us want to keep as many options open as possible.

Maybe you know someone who quit school and did just fine. Well, you know what? It’s getting harder and harder to get by in life without an education. You can’t just go get a job at a plant where they make cars anymore. A lot of those jobs are gone, and the ones that remain require reading, math and computer skills that you get in high school or college. Today, bosses consider a high school diploma the minimal guarantee that a worker knows the basics-you know, reading, writing and simple math. A diploma also suggests to many bosses that a worker has the ability to start and finish something. About the only jobs open to those without a diploma are extremely low-paying and un-fun jobs like flipping hamburgers, picking strawberries or cleaning up hotel rooms.
Maybe you want to leave school to help your family pay the bills. If so, just think for a second: in the long-term you are severely limiting your earning potential. There’s not much about that that will help out your present or future family.

Before you drop out of school, think long and hard about what your decision will mean for the rest of your life.

Look at our six steps to take before you drop out in the blue boxes on the right side of this page. With more thought, you may discover that while school isn’t your most favorite place to be, it makes much more sense to stick it out than to give up.

Still ready to go? Try these steps first

Look at the results of a survey of people who dropped out of high school

But as adults, four out of five poll participants said that graduating from high school is very

At the time of their decision to leave high school, fifty-three percent had planned to go back and graduate. Since that time, however, only 11% have actually gone back and graduated.

Seventy-four percent of our survey respondents said they would have stayed in school, knowing what they know today about the expectations of the world, 76% said they would definitely or probably re-enroll in a high school for people their age if they could.

In the survey, 47 percent said that not having a diploma makes it hard to find a good job.  Participants in our focus groups counseled others to stay in school for this reason.

DON’T GIVE UP…..STAY IN SCHOOL!

Sources-The Silent Epidemic Perspectives of High School Dropouts http://www.careerprospects.org , www.abcnews.com

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