Dropout Rates in The United States: 2000, Event and Status Dropout Rates

Event and Status Dropout Rates

Region

Regional differences that have been evident since the mid-1970s were also found in 2000²⁰. In 2000, status dropout rates in the Northeast (8.5 percent) and Midwest (9.2 percent) were significantly lower than dropout rates in the South (12.9 percent) and West (11.3 percent) (table 3). No statistically significant differences were found between status dropout rates of the Midwest and Northeast, or between the status dropout rates of the South and West.

Moreover, the South had a disproportionately large percentage of dropouts in their young adult population, as the region comprised 35.7 percent of all 16- through 24-year-olds, and 42.3 percent of all dropouts in 2000. In contrast, while young adults living in the Midwest made up roughly 23.3 percent of the population ages 16-24 in the United States, 19.6 percent of all dropouts resided in this region. Young dropouts living in the Northeast also represented a smaller proportion of dropouts (13.3 percent) in comparison with the proportion of all young adults living in this region (17.2 percent). The West accounted for about 24.7 percent of all dropouts in this age group, proportionate to its share of the population ages 16-24 (23.8 percent).

20 See U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Dropout Rates in the United States: 1990, NCES 91-053, P. Kaufman, M. McMillen, and S. Whitener (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1991), table 7. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Dropout Rates in the United States: 1995, NCES 97-473, by M. McMillen (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1997), table 5. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Dropout Rates in the United States: 1999, NCES 2001-022, by P. Kaufman, J. Kwon, S. Klein, and C. Chapman (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2000), table 3.