U.S. dropouts fare worse, study finds

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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 United States earn 65 percent of what people with high school degrees make, according to a 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 disparity is more pronounced in the United States partly because the U.S. labor market is more flexible, said Barbara Ischinger, director of education for the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Other nations protect people with weak education qualifications through regulations or tax systems that favor the low-skilled, she said.

On the other end of the spectrum, however, the United States more richly rewards those who go to college, according to OECD’s “Education at a Glance,” an annual study that aims to help leaders see how their nations stack up. The study was released yesterday.

An adult with a university degree in the United States earns, on average, 72 percent more than someone with a high school degree. That’s a much bigger difference than in most countries.

The study compares the United States to 29 other nations that belong to the economic organization, although not every country reported data on every indicator.

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 youths.

Adults in their 20s and 30s have slightly lower high school completion rates than older adults.

“We, perhaps as parents, are doing better than our kids. And I have real worries about that,” said Betsy Brand, director of the nonprofit American Youth Policy Forum.

About one-third of students in the United States don’t finish high school on time — or at all. Estimates on that dropout rate vary, though, and state data are often shaky.