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Essay On Dropout Age To 18

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In 2011, the state legislators of Alaska, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland and Rhode Island all considered raising the high school dropout age to 18, yet Rhode Island was the only state that proved successful (Lewin, 2012). Only a year later, President Barack Obama urged all states to move the dropout age to 18 in his State of the Union Address. This was the first time Washington directly addressed an issue that many state legislators found difficult to present (Ho, 2017). In the past, the dropout age was set at 16 in a majority of the nation. Some states still hold that legislation, however, most recently the District of Columbia and 21 other states require mandatory attendance until the age of 18. While 11 other states require mandatory…show more content…
A recent study shows that people are more likely to finish something when more than 50 percent of it is already complete. Sophomores in high school still have a good two more years ahead of them, whereas seniors only have a maximum of ten months (Raise the Age, 2009). Even though, there are still multiple reason to why student’s dropout, age should not be one of them.
From 1972 to 2006 high school dropout rates decreased from 6.1 percent to 3.8 percent. A majority of this decline occurred between 1972 and 1990, when the rate dropped to 4 percent. However, from 1990 to 1995 there was a surprising increase in dropout rates (Laird & others, 2008). Since then there have been numerous debates and discussions on the issue of dropout rates and how to handle them appropriately. From the information above, it is very evident that the United States wasn’t directly involved with the matter. As a result, stated before, President Barack Obama made his claim towards this issue. This urged most states across the nation to raise the dropout age (Ho, 2017). In fact, a study co-authored by Alan Krueger, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, found that in some states approximately 25 percent of potential dropouts stayed in school since the compulsory schooling age was moved to 18. With an additional year of schooling that 25 percent will increase their earnings by at least 7 percent when
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