High School Dropouts Cost $319 Billion Over Lifetime

ATLANTA (AP) — High school dropouts from the class of 2008 will cost the country $319 billion over their lifetime, former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise said during a panel discussion Thursday.

That number includes the income the students will have lost because of a lack of education and what they'll cost taxpayers in publicly funded healthcare, prison stays and other services.

"The first group affected when a student drops out of high school is the student themselves, but there's another group affected as well," Wise told the room full of teens from across the country. "It's the rest of us. It's you, me, all of us."

Read the full article in Education Week