Event and Status Dropout Rates

Age and Sex

As might be expected, young adults of high school age (16 or 17) registered among the lowest status dropout rates, presumably because many of these individuals were still enrolled in school and pursuing a high school diploma. Though these younger students represented 22.9 percent of all 16-through 24 year-olds in 2000, they accounted for just 12.2 percent of all dropouts (table 3). Consequently, the numbers of young adults ages 18 through 24 who had not completed a high school education were comparatively higher, comprising 87.8 percent of all dropouts in 2000.

Data on status dropout rates indicate that males were more likely to be status dropouts than females in 2000. Although males and females are relatively equally represented in the population of young adults ages 16-24, males constituted a greater percentage of all status dropouts. In 2000, 55.1 percent of all status dropouts were male, while 44.9 percent were female.