Many of these students abandon school with less than two years to complete their high school education.  

This tragic cycle has not substantially improved during the past few decades when education reform has been high on the public agenda. During this time, the public has been almost entirely unaware of the severity of the dropout problem due to inaccurate data. The consequences remain tragic.  

The decision to drop out is a dangerous one for the student. Dropouts are much more likely than their peers who graduate to be unemployed, living in pover ty, receiving public assistance, in prison, on death row, unhealthy, divorced, and single parents with children who drop out from high school themselves. Our communities and nation also suffer from the dropout epidemic due to the loss of productive workers and the higher costs associated with increased incarceration, health care and social ser vices.  

Given the clear detrimental economic and personal costs to them, why do young people drop out of high school in such large numbers? Almost every elementary and middle school student reports ambitions that include high school graduation and at least some college. Why are so many dreams cut short? And what steps should be taken to turn the tide? In an effort to better understand the lives and circumstances of students who drop out of high school and to help ground the research in the stories and reflections of the former students themselves, a series of focus groups and a survey were conducted of young people aged 16-­25 who identified themselves as high school dropouts in 25 different locations throughout the United States.

These interviews took place in large cities, suburbs and small towns with high dropout rates. A primary purpose of this report is to approach the dropout problem from a perspective that has not been much considered in past studies – that of the stu­dents themselves. These efforts were designed to paint a more in­depth picture of who these young people are, why they dropped out of high school, and what might have helped them complete their high school education. We wanted to give their stories and insights a voice, and to offer our own views on next steps, in the hope that this report could be a further wake­up call to educators, policymakers, other leaders, and the public to summon the national will to address the high school dropout epidemic.