Percent of 16- to 24-year-olds who were high school dropouts, by race/ethnicity: 1972–2000 NOTE: The data presented here represent status dropout rates, which is the percentage of persons ages 16–24 who are out of school and who have not earned a high school credential. Another way of calculating dropout rates is the event dropout rate, the percentage of 15- to 24-year-olds who dropped out of grades 10 through 12 in the 12 months preceding the fall of each data collection year. Event dropout rates are not presented here. SOURCE: P. Kaufman, M.N. Alt, and C.D. Chapman, Drop