Report: U.S. high school dropout rate reaches new low, driven by improvements by blacks, Hispanics
More U.S. high school students are staying in school, according to recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
As a result, the national dropout rate reached a record low last year.
Just 7% of the nation’s 18-to-24 year olds had dropped out of high school, continuing a steady decline in the nation’s dropout rate since 2000, when 12% of youth were dropouts.
The decline in the national dropout rate has been driven, in part, by substantially fewer Hispanic and black youth dropping out of school (the non-Hispanic white dropout rate has not fallen as sharply). Although Hispanics still have the highest dropout rate among all major racial and ethnic groups, it reached a record-low of 14% in 2013, compared with 32% of Hispanic 18- to 24-year-olds who were dropouts in 2000.
The new data reveals significant progress over the past ten years at other measures of educational attainment among Hispanic youth. Not only are fewer dropping out of school, but more are graduating and attending college.
Still, both Hispanic and black youth continue to trail whites when it comes to graduation rates for both high school and college.
For black youth, the dropout rate was at a record low in 2013 (8%) and has declined by close to half since 2000 (15%). Blacks made up 16 percent of the nations public school students in 2013.
Such wonderful news for our youth!
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