High School Dropout Rate 1 in 4, According to Study

The high school dropout rate is actually 1 in 4, not the 10 percent that the United States government estimates, according to a new study from the University of Michigan. Sociologists working on the study found that not only that the high school dropout rate was higher than expected, but that the figure has not improved in recent decades.

The University of Michigan study highlight's the discrepancy between two sources of data that could be used to estimate high school dropout rates. The United States uses the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS) to give approximate high school dropout rates. The survey shows only 10 percent of students dropout, with that number steadily declining by 40 percent over the last ten years.

However, the University of Michigan study used the information available from the National Center for Education Statistics' Common Core of Data survey (CCD), which indicates a 25 percent dropout rate. It also indicates that the rate of high school completion has not significantly changed within the past few decades.

The study, lead by sociology professor John Robert Warren and graduate student Andrew Halpern-Manners is detailed in a paper titled "Is the Glass Emptying or Filling Up: Reconciling Divergent Trends in High School Completion and Dropout," which in the most recent issue of Educational Researcher. The study indicates that the difference in high school dropout rate statistics can have people using the CCD numbers to describe a dropout rate crisis while others using the CPS study may claim much less of a problem.

The difference in the two data sources may be in part to different handling of data. Private high school graduates and GED recipients are both counted differently in the CCD data versus the CPS data. However, the University of Michigan study accounted for these differences and still found at least half of the discrepancy still remained between the two sets of data.