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Persuasive Essay On High School Dropout

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High schools across the country are proud to say that in recent years, the national dropout rate has decreased to an all time low. Still, hundreds of thousands of students are failing to receive a high school diploma; thus, altering their careers, income, families, and overall future. As a country, we would like to see these rates deteriorate until every student in high school is graduating. Teenagers are leaving school because of situational inconveniences that are made worse by not graduating. Students need to be made aware of the consequences they face when deciding to drop out including increased chance of incarceration, lower paying jobs or unemployment, poverty, and a lower quality of life. By dropping out of high school, teenagers are immediately susceptible to lower income or unemployment because the workforce of today requires higher education for an adequate salary. Philip Oreopoulos, a professor at the University of Toronto says, “among recent dropouts, 16% are unemployed and 32% live below the poverty line. Dropouts with jobs earn an average of only $12.75 per hour, with the most common jobs found in the construction, food services, and landscaping industries” (Messacar and Oreopoulos). To put this into perspective, the average secondary school teacher gets paid around $27 per hour. Lacking a high school diploma makes it very difficult to get high paying jobs, thus making it difficult to gain work experience. Especially in this generation, favorable jobs require much higher education experience than they did before. Recent data shows that, “median weekly earnings for workers with a high school diploma equal $678. That works out to $35,256 per year. Americans with a bachelor’s degree earn a weekly average of $1,137. That’s higher than the median weekly earnings for workers at all education levels, $860. Average earnings for workers with bachelor’s degrees work out to $59,124 per year. Workers with a professional degree earn a median weekly salary of $1,730, the highest weekly earnings of any of the educational categories. That works out to $89,960 per year” (Josephson). By lacking a high school diploma, teenagers are automatically at a disadvantage when pursuing careers. As more people in the

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