Report If dropped out of high school, the odds of getting a job is way better if you have computer skills

[tom_mai78101]

The assumption in industrialized countries is that if you don’t go to college your future is likely pretty bleak. As the title of a 1998 report read, "To the Educated, the Spoils." And to the uneducated, the spoiled.

And if you didn’t even graduate high school. Ooh, let the hand-wringing begin. According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, the average income for a dropout (in 2009) was $19,540 compared to $27,380 for a graduate and $46,930 for someone with a bachelor’s degree. High school dropouts are much more likely to be unemployed, to be let go first when times get tough, and to end up in prison (82 percent of inmates don’t have a diploma).

First off, the picture isn’t quite as dire as dropout rates from schools suggest. Yes, about a quarter of U.S. high school freshmen don’t graduate four years later, as expected. But by age 24, according to federal figures, only about one in 10 don’t have a diploma or its legal equivalent. Right now, 78.2 percent of high school freshmen graduate on schedule, the best that that stat has been in 30 years. Historically, we’re doing pretty good:

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 1910, only 13.5% of the adult population had completed secondary school. By mid-century, one-third (34.3%) of the population had completed 12 years of school. And by century’s end, 84.1% of the adult population held a high school diploma.

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