NCES Report on High School Dropout and Completion Rates Now in ERIC

Nov. 15, 2011

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) report, Trends in High School Dropout and Completion Rates in the United States: 1972-2009, is now available in ERIC. This report updates a series of NCES reports that began in 1988. It includes the following data:

National and regional population estimates for the percentage of students who dropped out of high school between 2008 and 2009 (3.4 percent nationwide, with higher rates reported for Black and Hispanic students — 4.8 and 5.8 percent, respectively).
The percentage of young people between 16 and 24 who were dropouts in 2009 (8.1 percent of the 38 million non-institutionalized civilians of that age group living in the United States).
The percentage of young people between 18 and 24 and not in high school who had some form of high school credential in 2009 (nearly 90%, when both students with diplomas and those with General Educational Development credentials are included).

Data are broken down by race/ethnicity, sex, age, and state. For example, of first-time freshmen in public schools four years earlier, 75.5 percent had graduated with a regular diploma by the end of the 2008-09 school year. State-level rates ranged from 56.3 percent to 90.7 percent.

For more information about the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, please see www.nces.ed.gov.