Every year in the United States of America, as many as 1.2 million high school students drop out of their school. The reason for students to leave school varies but the most significant factor in surging dropout rates is the misconception that what they have learned in school is not relevant to their lives. However, their regrettable decision to withdraw from school turned out to be devastating. The students who quitted school are now confronted with various negative outcomes that set back their standing in society and our nation is also struggling with a dropout crisis that undermines its economic growth. Therefore, the government should adopt a mandatory education policy that requires high school students to earn their diploma because dropout makes it difficult for them to land good-paying jobs, imposes a costly burden to society, and increases the chances of extramarital births.
First of all, high school students should not drop out of school for their own sake because it is hard for students who quitted school to find a profitable job in the future. As the importance of job specifications such as work experience or academic achievement is growing rapidly among young applicants, students without a high school diploma cannot help but lag far behind high school graduates in landing well-paying jobs. According to U.S Census Bureau, average wages of the dropouts are less than two-thirds of the income earned by their peers who completed high school education (qtd in. Breslow). This statistic also implies that the majority of dropouts are more susceptible to experiencing unemployment and exploitation of labor-oriented underpaid jobs that they reluctantly chose to make both ends meet. Thus, to help students avoid job loss or underemployment after dropping out, the school should make sure that they devote themselves to their studies and receive enough education to carve out a good career in the future.
Another reason why high school dropout needs to be discouraged is that it forces too many taxpayers and the government to pay an excessive amount of money for the welfare of dropped out students. The ramifications of dropping out of high school are not only costly to individuals but also to a society that has the responsibility to make dropouts get back on their feet. First, there is a high chance that the dropouts are involved in welfare or legal systems owing to their poor living and working conditions. Belfield and Levin claimed that this increased social dependence of the dropouts brings rising public cost to our nation that compels taxpayers to bear a gut-wrenching amount of expenses (qtd in. Rumberger). In addition, as shown by the fact that over 66 percent of all incarcerated populations in the U.S are high school dropouts (Bloom & Haskins 4), they are also vulnerable to engaging in a variety of criminal and delinquent activities that will eventually result in their imprisonment and impose a huge burden on the state budget. In short, subsidizations needed to help them make a living and taxes for maintenance of the prison facilities all cost members of society a substantial amount of money.
Finally, high school dropout should be completely banned because it potentially increases the risk of births outside of marriage which intensifies the dropout crisis. A report by North Eastern University found that the dropouts estranged from restrictions of their parents or teachers have a tendency to take part in risky actions such as alcohol, violence and drug abuse. Among those improper behaviors, the most serious is early pregnancy which has a high probability to entail out-of-wedlock births. This problematic issue makes children born to students without marital status be abandoned as they do not have enough capabilities to support their children. Furthermore, Rector stated that it is five times more likely for children born from extramarital relation to live in an unstable environment with welfare than those from married couples. The majority of children born outside marriage, therefore, have no choice but to experience same poverty and academic failure that their parents suffered from before and this thus, causes a vicious cycle of school dropout that continues throughout the generations.
To wrap up, since high school dropout blocks individual's way to success and hinders our nation's economic development, inhibiting it is not only a breakthrough for prospective students to face a bright future but also a first national priority that has to be immediately done by the government. Students who dropped out of school are stuck in the hole as they have no steady jobs to live on and this has forced our country's economy to slide deeper into the depression. Moreover, a socially unacceptable problem such as births out-of-wedlock is deteriorating living standard of the students and worsening the chain reaction of high school dropout that does not seem to end. Therefore, it is a necessity for all of us to dedicate ourselves in decreasing overall dropout rates and helping students who failed to receive their high school diploma get back on its track.
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