Dropout Rates

As economies become increasingly driven by information and technology, how the United States prepares its future labor force will affect the economy’s competitiveness in the global market. Over the past two decades, students’ outcomes have consistently lagged behind those in other developed countries, yet the demand for skilled labor has been increasing. For example, the Department of Labor has projected that jobs requiring at least an associate’s degree will grow twice as fast as those requiring no college experience, and that jobs that require some type of postsecondary education will grow faster than jobs with any other type of education requirement from 2010 to 2020. Since the start of the economic crisis at the end of 2007, U.S. president Barack Obama has acknowledged that educational ...