If all of the U.S. high school dropouts from the Class of 2008 had instead earned diplomas along with their classmates, the U.S. economy could have benefited from an additional $319 billion in wages over these students’ lifetimes. So say conservative calculations made by the Alliance for Excellent Education that were published in The High Cost of High School Dropouts: What the Nation Pays for Inadequate High Schools.

Teachers are crucial to the success of our students. Yet many of them are leaving their schools and the profession every year, particularly in poorer, lower-performing schools. Several studies have attempted to identify why teachers leave and how to stem their turnover, but few have identified the quality of teachers who are departing. As in any profession, not all attrition is bad, but whether bad or good, it has financial ramifications. This brief explores the costs associated with teachers leaving the profession and their schools, the characteristics of those likely to leave, and what can be done to prevent unnecessary and costly turnover.

Hidden Benefits: The Impact of High School Graduation on Household Wealth demonstrates that if high school dropouts who currently head households in the U.S. had instead earned diplomas, the nation’s economy would benefit from an additional $74 billion in wealth accumulated by families. The wealth gap between high school dropouts and high school graduates is even more severe than the better known income gap.

Healthier and Wealthier argues that higher educational attainment improves a student’s future income, occupational status, and social prestige, all of which contributes to improved individual health. The brief cites several reasons why, including the fact that Americans with higher educational attainment have more insurance coverage, individuals who lack health insurance receive less medical care and have poorer health outcomes, and lower education levels generally lead to occupations with greater health hazards.

The education gap that exists between white and minority students in the United States is a byproduct of both economic disparity and inequity. Lack of resources and fewer qualified teachers are just two factors that contribute to the problem. Currently, only about 70 percent of all American high school students graduate in the expected four years, but the figures are even bleaker for minority populations. As minority populations become larger as a percentage of the population, and if their low graduation rates remain the same, the national graduation rate will soon begin to fall as a growing number of minority students are left behind.

Americans are beginning to recognize that many of the nation’s high schools are in crisis, as policymakers, business leaders, and celebrities call attention to the country’s low graduation rates. But the dropout problem, although severe, is only one indicator of the trouble plaguing the country’s secondary schools. Because too many students are not learning the basic skills needed to succeed in college or work while they are in high school, the nation loses more than $3.7 billion a year.

Reforming the nation’s high schools could potentially increase the number of graduates and, as a result, significantly reduce the nation’s crime-related costs and add billions of dollars to the economy through the additional wages they would earn. Increasing the graduation rate and college matriculation of male students by only 5 percent could lead to combined savings and revenue of almost $8 billion each year.