More people are graduating from high school than ever before, but 2.7 percent of ninth graders still drop out during or before the 11th grade. That comes out to approximately 110,000 students in the class of 2013.
There is a wide racial gap in dropout students, with one non-white race the least likely to drop out. The chart below shows high school dropout rates by race, as determined by the National Center for Education Statistics.
Only 0.3 percent of Asian students are dropouts. White students are actually seven times more likely to drop out. Black students are 14 times more likely than Asians to drop out, while Hispanics are almost 12 times more likely than Asians to drop out.
Students in low income families are more likely to drop out than students in wealthier families. Only 0.6 percent of students in the highest fifth of
Socioeconomic status drop out. In the lowest fifth, 4.7 percent dropped out, making them eight times more likely to drop out of high school.
Socioeconomic status is not simply a measure of family income, but also parental education and occupations.
Male and female students drop out at approximately equal rates, with the male dropout rate just 0.1 percentage points higher than females.
Data are measured from students who started high school in fall of 2009 and dropped out by spring of 2012, which would have been their junior year.
