Each year thousands of Minnesota students do not graduate with their peers...

• Just over 15,000 dropouts from the Class of 2008 cost the state over $3.9 billion in lost wages, taxes, and productivity over their lifetimes — up from nearly 14,900 dropouts from the Class of 2007, which cost the state almost $3.9 billion in lost wages, taxes, and productivity over their lifetimes.
  
  
• More than $1.3 billion would be added to Minnesota’s economy by 2020 if students of color graduated at the same rate as white students.
  
  
• Minnesota households would have over $829 million more in accumulated wealth if all heads of households had graduated from high school.
  
  
• Minnesota would save more than $224.4 million in health care costs over the lifetimes of each class if 100% of students had earned their diplomas.
  
  
• If Minnesota’s high schools graduated all of their students ready for college, the state would save almost $89.1 million
  a year in community college remediation costs and lost earnings.
  
  
• Minnesota’s economy would see a combination of crime-related savings and additional revenue of about $77.8 million each year if the male high school graduation rate increased by just 5%.

Additional Resources

January 2010 - The Economic Benefits from Halving Minneapolis’s Dropout Rate - In the Minneapolis metropolitan area, an estimated 10,300 students dropped out from the Class of 2008 at great cost not only to themselves but also to their communities. Reducing the number of dropouts by 50 percent for this single high school class would result in tremendous economic benefits to the Minneapolis region, Alliance for Excellent Education (Press Release; America's Fifty Largest Cities).

• $86 million in increased earnings
• an additional $57 million in spending and $22 million in investing
• increased home sales of $256 million and auto sales of $6 million
• 650 new jobs and $108 million increase in gross regional product
• $14 million increase in annual state and local tax revenue
• 68 percent of new graduates likely to pursue postsecondary education

March 2008 - Knocking at the College Door Projections of High School Graduates by State and Race/Ethnicity, 1992-2022 - Provides data on enrollments and graduates by state and for major racial/ethnic groups covering the period from 1991-92 through 2021-22. Does NOT include data on dropout/completion rates overall or by ethnicity (Minnesota State Report), Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.

January 2007 - The Costs and Benefits of an Excellent Education for All of America’s Children - Study identifies five research-based education interventions to improve high school graduation rates yielding a net economic benefit of $127,000 per student at 2.5 times greater than the costs (ROI), Columbia University.