Study: Ohio High School Dropouts Cost Taxpayers $200K

A recent University of Cincinnati study reveals high school dropouts cost Ohio tax payers approximately $200,000 from the time they leave school until they are 65-years old.

At the request of the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools (OAPCS), UC’s Economics Center for Education and Research conducted a study in September 2008 that categorized and calculated the benefits and losses that derive from high school graduation rates.

In order to evaluate the effects that high school dropouts have upon the economy surrounding Ohio’s eight major metropolitan regions, researchers compared local financial reports with data collected from school districts central to that area.

Combing research gathered from these areas, researchers found that Ohio houses 749,879 high school dropouts and that the state loses $7.6 billion annually as a result of their educational deficit.

Researchers calculated that individuals who drop out of high school earn on average $8,459 less than someone who attains a high school diploma.

As a result of the income gap, dropouts are more likely to be reliant on the taxes collected by state and local governments.

According to Benjamin Passty, director of the applied economics research institute of UC, the study draws the correct conclusion that “education pays and encouraging education pays for both individuals and municipal governments.”

Although, Passty believes that what the study fails to mention is the economic and situational reasoning behind the individual’s choice to drop out of high school.

“Most dropouts are from less effective schools,” said Passty. “The study mentions the inner city schools in big cities, but the average benefits to a [high school] degree are calculated using graduates from all schools, even the affluent suburban ones around those same cities.”

UC researchers concluded that the incarceration rates for high school dropouts stand at 11.5 percent, while high school graduates are incarcerated at a rate of 5 percent.

Although the Ohio Department of Education reports that graduation rates have steadily risen within the state’s high schools, educational institutions are implementing programs to further boost the upward trend.

A Cincinnati-based philanthropic organization focused on education, the KnowledgeWorks Foundation, has helped local school districts create comprehensive plans to promote public high school graduation.

Strive, a partnership between Knowledge Works, Greater Cincinnati public school districts and public universities such as UC, is merely one of the programs implemented to improve education and economic goals in the region.

“The lack of education is the root of poverty,” said Jeff Edmondson, executive director of Strive. “It is integral to rethink education completely.”

There are key transitional points in a child’s educational career, and if a student doesn’t obtain the correct skills at these points, it will deter them from receiving the highest level of education, Edmondson said.

Some local high schools believe that educating students with a career-focused curriculum will not only promote graduation but will allow high school students to gain realistic concepts of the career opportunities in the 21st century.

Aiken University High School is the first high school in Cincinnati to administer an environmental science-based curriculum, and already Principal Virginia Rhodes has seen improvement in Ohio Graduation Test scores, which were the lowest in the state three years ago.

Rhodes, who said she believes that the structure of Aiken University’s academics encourages students with a vision of a practical and successful future, also said she sees the students “developing into goal-setters.”

Aiken Traditional High School also adjusted its academic focus when it emerged as Aiken College and Career High School in the 2006-2007 academic year.

The high school jumped from having a 50 percent graduation rate when the school had a traditional academic focus in the 2005-2006 year to a 93 percent rate after they made the educational transition.