Over the past three decades, annual estimates of the event dropout rate have fluctuated between 4.0 and 6.7 percent . However, overall there has been a downward trend in event dropout rates, from 6.1 percent in 1972 to 4.8 percent in 2000. The percentage of young adults who left school each year without successfully completing a high school program decreased from 1972 through 1987. Despite year-to-year fluctuations, the percentage of students dropping out of school each year has stayed relatively unchanged since 1987. Changes in data collection and estimation procedures coincided with an increase in the rates from 1991 through 1995 (see appendix D). Nevertheless, over the period from 1991 through 2000, there was no consistent upward or downward trend in event rates.

Income
The CPS includes family income data that can be used to provide information about how socioeconomic background is related to the decisions of youth to drop out of school. Of course, the range of factors that may affect the life decisions of youth extend beyond the economic conditions associated with family income; however, in the absence of additional measures, family income serves as a good indicator for the other social and economic factors that are likely to be related to a youth's decision to stay in school.

In 2000, young adults living in families with incomes in the lowest 20 percent of all family incomes were six times as likely as their peers from families in the top 20 percent of the income distribution to drop out of high school. Ten percent of students from families in the lowest 20 percent of the income distribution dropped out of high school; by way of comparison, 5.2 percent in the middle 60 percent of the income distribution dropped out, as did 1.6 percent of students from families with incomes in the top 20 percent.

Most of the declines in dropout rates for all income groups occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. Since 1990, event dropout rates for all income groups have stabilized. For example, since 1990, event dropout rates for low-income youth have fluctuated between 9.5 and 13.3 percent. Event rates for young adults living in middle- and high-income families have also shown no upward or downward trend since 1990, with rates fluctuating between 3.8 and 5.7 percent, and 1.0 and 2.7 percent, respectively.

Income is only one of a number of closely linked background factors that may be related to a student's decision to drop out of school; others include race/ethnicity, age, sex, school and community factors, and geographic region of residence. Analyses of all the specific interactions among intervening variables that mediate the dropout decision are beyond the scope of this report. Instead, this report reviews some of the primary factors that are associated with higher event dropout rate.

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