64 Family and Community Engagement Research Compendium
Summer reading loss is cumulative. Children who missed out over
the summer months don’t catch up in the fall because, meanwhile,
their peers have been moving even further ahead with their skills.
By the end of sixth grade, children who have repeatedly fallen
behind in reading skills over the summer are two years behind their
classmates. It is for this reason that some researchers estimate that
one-half to two-thirds of the achievement gap for diverse students
living in poverty is the result of summer learning loss (Alexander et
al., 2007; Cooper et al., 2000; McGill-Franzen & Allington, 2003).
Access to Books & Return on Investment
FACT
The cost of summer school intervention was estimated at $1,500 per student
annually, while the cost of the books supplied in the Allington intervention
was approximately $50 per student annually.
The cost of getting a high school dropout back to school and through to
graduation is $13,000 a year, or roughly $33,000 total.
On average, over the course of his or her working life, a high school dropout
receives $71,000 more in cash and in-kind benefits than he or she pays
in taxes. The societal costs may include imprisonment, government-paid
medical insurance, and food stamps.
In contrast, high school graduates pay $236,000 more in taxes than they
receive in benefits, and college degree holders pay $885,000 more in taxes
than they receive.
Lifetime earnings of dropouts totaled $595,000, the study found, compared
to $1,066,000 earned by high school graduates and $1,509,000 by those with
a two-year junior college degree.
In Illinois, the fifth-most-populous U.S. state, with nearly 13 million residents,
11.5 percent of adults aged 19 to 24 left school without earning a high school
diploma, and in Chicago that figure reached 15 percent.
•
The highest dropout rates were among African American and Hispanic
men, at as high as 30 percent.
High school dropouts accounted for 51 percent of the Illinois prison
population, the study found.
•
The cost of housing an inmate is $22,000 annually, and adds up to more
than $1 billion a year for the 46,000 prisoners being held in the state,
according to state statistics.
•
Among men aged 18 to 34, 15 percent of the dropouts were in prison,
an incarceration rate that was five times higher than that of high school
graduates.
RESEARCH
Cost of High School
Dropouts Draining U.S.
Taxpayer (U.S. DoE, 2011)
Allington, R. et al. (2007).
Ameliorating summer
reading setback among
economically disadvantaged
elementary students. Paper
presented at the American
Educational Research
Association, Chicago.
Sum, A. et al. (2011). High
school dropouts in Chicago
and Illinois: The growing
labor market, income, civic,
social, and fiscal costs of
dropping out of high school.
Boston, MA. Northeastern
University.
Sum, A. et al. (2011). The
consequences of dropping
out of high school:
joblessness and jailing for
high school dropouts and
high cost for taxpayers.
Boston, MA. Northeastern
University.