• Event Dropout Rates
• Status Dropout Rates
• High School Completion Rates
• Method of High School Completion

This is the 10th in a series of National Center for Education Statistics reports on high school dropout and completion rates. It presents data on rates in 1997, the most recent year for which data are available, and includes time series data on high school dropout and completion rates for the period 1972 through 1997. In addition to extending time series data reported in earlier years, this report examines the characteristics of high school dropouts and high school completers in 1997.

Event dropout rates for 1997 describe the proportion of youths ages 15 through 24 years who dropped out of grades 10 to 12 in the 12 months preceding October 1997. Demographic data collected in the Current Population Survey (CPS) permit event dropout rates to be calculated across a variety of individual characteristics, including race, sex, region of residence, and income level.

• About 5 out of every 100 young adults enrolled in high school in 1996 left school before October 1997 without successfully completing a high school program. This estimate of 4.6 percent was similar to those reported over the last 10 years, but lower than in the early 1970s (table A and figure A).
• Hispanic students were more likely than white and black students to leave school short of completing a high school program: in 1997, 9.5 percent of Hispanics were event dropouts, compared with 3.6 percent of white and 5.0 percent of black students. Event dropout rates were not significantly different between white and black students.
• In 1997, young adults living in families with incomes in the lowest 20 percent of all family incomes were nearly seven times as likely as their peers from families in the top 20 percent of the income distribution to drop out of high school.
• Students who remained in high school longer than the majority of their age cohort dropped out at higher rates than their younger peers.
• Although dropout rates were highest among students age 19 or older, about two-thirds (69 percent) of the current-year dropouts were ages 15 through 18; moreover, 35 percent of the 1997 dropouts were 15 through 17 years of age.

Over the last decade, between 300,000 and 500,000 10th- through 12th-grade students left school each year without successfully completing a high school program. Each year, some of these young adults return to school or an alternative certification program, and others pass out of this age group. Status dropout rates represent the proportion of young adults ages 16 through 24 who are out of school and who have not earned a high school credential.

• In October 1997, some 3.6 million young adults were not enrolled in a high school program and had not completed high school. These youths accounted for 11.0 percent of the 33 million 16- through 24-year-olds in the United States in 1997 (table A and figure A). As noted with event rates, this estimate is consistent with those reported over the last 10 years, but lower than in the early 1970s.
• Status dropout rates of whites remain lower than for blacks, but over the past quarter century the difference between blacks and whites has narrowed.
• Hispanic young adults in the United States continue to have higher status dropout rates than either whites or blacks. In 1997, 25.3percent of Hispanic young adults were status dropouts, compared to 13.4 percent of blacks and 7.6 percent of whites.
• Thirty-nine percent of Hispanic young adults born outside the 50 states and the District of Columbia were high school dropouts. Although the dropout rates of Hispanics born in the United States were lower, they were higher than the dropout rates of non-Hispanics born in the United States.

The high school completion rate represents the proportion of 18- to 24-year-olds who have completed a high school diploma or an equivalent credential, including a General Educational Development (GED) credential.

• In 1997, about 86 percent of all 18- through 24-year-olds, not enrolled in school, had completed high school—a slight increase since the early 1970s (table A and figure A).

Proportion of 15- to 24-year-olds in grades 10 to 12 who dropped out in the past year (event dropout rate)

Proportion of 16- to 24-year-olds who were dropouts (status dropout rate)

Proportion of 18- to 24-year-olds who had completed high school

• The high school completion rate has increased for white and black young adults since the early 1970s, with 1997 rates of 90.5 percent for whites and 82.0 percent for blacks. Hispanic young adults have not shared in this improvement, with 66.7 percent reported as having completed high school in 1997.

Most young adults complete a regular diploma and graduate from high school; others complete high school by an alternative route, such as by passing the GED test.

• During the 1990s, the percentage of young adults, not enrolled in school, holding a high school credential has remained relatively unchanged; however, the percentage holding an alternative certification increased from 4.9 percent in 1990 to 9.1 percent in 1997, and the percentage holding regular diplomas decreased by a similar amount.