A new report from the U.S. Department of Education includes data on school drop out rates by racial and ethnic group.
Some 5.9 percent of all African Americans enrolled in grades 10 to 12 in the United States in October 2015, dropped out of school by October of the next year. For Whites, 4.5 percent of students in these grades dropped out of school in the same period.
In 2016, 6.2 percent of all African Americans ages 16 to 24 did not have a high school diploma and were not enrolled in school. For Whites, the figure was 5.2 percent.
This so-called status dropout rate has dropped significantly for African Americans since the turn of the century. In 2000, 13.1 percent of all African Americans ages 16 to 24 did not have a high school diploma and were not enrolled in school. Thus, the status dropout rate for Blacks in 2016 was less than half the rate that existed in 2000. For Whites, the status dropout rate dropped from 6.9 percent in 2000 to 5.2 percent in 2016.
The full report, Trends in High School Dropout and Completion Rates in the United States: 2018, may be downloaded by clicking here.
