Study: High school dropouts face steeper costs in U.S. (AP/CNN)

[eppur_se_muova]

POSTED: 11:18 a.m. EDT, September 12, 2006

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Dropping out of high school has its costs around the globe, but nowhere steeper than in the United States.

Adults who don't finish high school in the U.S. earn 65 percent of what people who have high school degrees make, according to a new report comparing industrialized nations. No other country had such a severe income gap.

Adults without a high school diploma typically make about 80 percent of the salaries earned by high school graduates in nations across Asia, Europe and elsewhere. Countries such as Finland, Belgium, Germany and Sweden have the smallest gaps in earnings between dropouts and graduates.

The figures come from "Education at a Glance," an annual study by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The report, released Tuesday, aims to help leaders see how their nations stack up.

The findings underscore the cost of a persistent dropout problem in the United States. It is rising as a national concern as politicians see the risks for the economy and for millions of kids.
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more: http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/09/12/education.compared.ap/index.html

[Laughing Mirror]

1. So, the one-third that drops out can expect to get paid two-thirds less

than somebody with a high school degree can expect. That's a hell of a lot of millions of people of poor poor people on your hands. I knew the drop out rate was bad, didn't know it was that high.

Think the politicians will listen to the OECD report? Maybe, but what can they do in a system rigged up to college degrees, leaving the disenchanted drop-outs pretty much to fend for themselves. It's really a scandal there are so many dropouts in the US, a country of bright people in spite of the almost disinterest by its government in educating them.