California City Dropout Profiles

California City Dropout Profiles has been published by the California Dropout Research Project at UC Santa Barbara.

This report examines the implications the dropout crisis has on 17 cities in California (including Pasadena, Los Angeles and Long Beach) by examining data from the 2006-2007 school year.  Implications of middle and high school students dropping out for various localities include violent crime (homicides and aggravated assaults), economic loss (lifetime losses to state and local governments, healthcare costs, loss of potential earnings by dropouts). In addition to 17 cities examined, California as a whole is compared.

Selected Findings:

• Over 123,000 students dropped out of California middle and high schools in the school year 2006-2007.
• Reducing the number of dropouts (in grades 7-12) by half in California would bring in a little over $12 billion dollars to the state in terms of economic benefits (mostly from lifetime earnings).
• About 12,367 students in the City of Los Angeles dropped out of middle and high schools in the school year 2006-2007.  For Pasadena the number was 329, and for Long Beach it was 1,835.
• If the number of students who dropped out (in grades 7-12) in the City of Los Angeles was reduced by half, then the city would see about 3,659 fewer violent crimes a year (in terms of aggravated assaults and homicides).