Did you know that since 1980 spending per resident in Nebraska on prisons in our state has increased 107%. This compares to a 55% per resident spending increase during that same time on higher education. Which do we want to increase – college graduates or prisoners?
The answer, though obvious, is not so easy to accomplish. How can we reduce the number of prisoners and free up dollars for more worthy investments? The response clearly is to reduce the amount of crime. One way of doing this is decreasing the number of high school dropouts. About half of the prison population is high school dropouts. A simple mathematical equation seems to apply: reduce dropouts and the crime rate and number of prisoners will go down.
Other costs to society and to the dropouts themselves are also devastating. These include the following taken from the June 22, 2006, Education Week magazine:
- Over a lifetime an 18-year-old who does not graduate from high school will earn about $260,000 less than a person with a high school degree. That means about $60,000 less will be contributed by each dropout in state and federal taxes.
- Interestingly dropouts have shorter lives and worse health than high school graduates. Paying for their health problems will largely fall on the publicly funded health services.
- High school dropouts are at greater risk of being on public assistance than are high school graduates.
- High school dropouts rarely are civic contributors. One indication of this is the low voter turnout rate (less than one third as likely to vote as a college graduate) among high school dropouts.
- As mentioned above, high school dropouts are much more likely to commit crimes than high school graduates. If the U.S. could increase the graduation rate by only one percent, it would save the country as much as $1.5 billion a year in the costs that are incurred by society because of crime.
- Our country is facing a severe skilled labor shortage. Having one third of our students dropout of school is one reason for this serious problem.
One of the best summaries of the tragedy of high school dropouts is on a North Carolina billboard. It gives a very direct message: “Dropping out = Poverty.”
The impacts of poverty affect everyone. Therefore, it is in the best interest of us all to find ways to increase the high school completion rate in this country. There are things we can do locally and nationally to address this problem. Some of the solutions are changes that schools need to make. Parents can also help lessen the likelihood of their children dropping out. Other responses can be made by the state and federal government. Still others can be accomplished by citizens at large.
Next week’s column will focus on some of these answers to the dropout problem. For now it is important to remember that each dropout is a personal and societal tragedy of great magnitude. Most of these stories are filled with pain and suffering. Very few of them have a happy ending for themselves or for their communities. Each dropout is victimized by his or her personal failure. Perhaps even sadder is the fact that each dropout is likely to victimize others either through crime, dysfunctional relationships, or dependence on public support.
All of us have a stake in finding a cure for this public epidemic. There are ways that we all can help in the fight.
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