Graduation rates are a fundamental indicator of whether or not the nation’s public school system is doing what it is intended to do: enroll, engage, and educate youth to be productive members of society. Since almost 90 percent of the fastest-growing and highest-paying jobs require some postsecondary education, having a high school diploma and the skills to succeed in college and the workplace are essential. Yet nationally, one-third of students—about 1.3 million each year—leave high school without a diploma, at a high cost to themselves and society at large. Unacceptably low graduation rates, particularly among poor and minority students, have been obscured for far too long by inaccurate data, calculations, and reporting, and inadequate accountability systems at the state and federal levels.

Nationally, and for each state, Understanding High School Graduation Rates provides the latest graduation rate statistics, demonstrates graduation gaps between demographic groups, illustrates the discrepancies in graduation rates reported by government and independent sources, and examines the economic costs of dropouts to individuals and society.

National

State Specific Information

Alabama	Illinois	Montana	Rhode Island
Alaska	Indiana	Nebraska	South Carolina
Arizona	Iowa	Nevada	South Dakota
Arkansas	Kansas	New Hampshire	Tennessee
California	Kentucky	New Jersey	Texas
Colorado	Louisiana	New Mexico	Utah
Connecticut	Maine	New York	Vermont
Delaware	Maryland	North Carolina	Virginia
District of Columbia	Massachusetts	North Dakota	Washington
Florida	Michigan	Ohio	West Virginia
Georgia	Minnesota	Oklahoma	Wisconsin
Hawaii	Mississippi	Oregon	Wyoming
Idaho	Missouri	Pennsylvania

Sources and Notes
http://www.all4ed.org/files/Sources_wc.pdf

Additional Information
To learn more about these issues, visit this page to see all of the Alliance’s publications related to Graduation Rates, including:

• Federal High School Graduation Rate Policies and the Impact on States (March 2009) are state briefs that outline the current high school graduation policies in that particular state and summarize the changes that new graduation rate regulations from the U.S. Department of Education would make in graduation rate definitions, graduation rate accountability, and data and data systems. The state briefs also highlight the policy concerns and hurdles that are unique to that state and must still be addressed.
• Every Student Counts: The Role of Federal Policy in Improving Graduation Rate Accountability (March 2009) provides background information on the movement toward better data collection, common graduation rate calculations, and meaningful accountability for raising graduation rates and describes in detail the culminating federal policy changes made by the regulations, which reflect both the significant progress that has been made and the hurdles that remain.
• Every Student Counts: The Case for Graduation Rate Accountability (July 2008) a policy brief that describes the flaws in current federal and state graduation rates policies.
• Who’s Counted? Who’s Counting? Understanding High School Graduation Rates (June 2006) a report that explains the reasons why so many different graduation rate formulas and statistics exist, addresses why states report them differently, discusses the limitations and benefits of each method, and – most importantly – defines the policy changes needed to assure that educators, school officials, parents, and the public receive timely and accurate information about how many students are actually graduating so that they can assess their schools’ current effectiveness and make improvements.