Graduates, Dropouts, and Persisters: A Novel Approach to Understanding the Correlates and Consequences of Non-Graduation

Background: There is an expansive body of research concerning high school graduation, however, most studies omit students who persist through four years of high school without earning a diploma. In addition, there is scant research exploring longer-term outcomes among students whose academic trajectories do not fit within the traditional four-year model of high school graduation, including eventual graduation, post-secondary enrollment, or engagement in the workforce. The current study addresses these gaps by examining the college and workforce outcomes of persisters—defined here as students who do not formally withdraw from high school, nor earn a regular diploma, four years after entering high school as a first-time ninth grader.

Method: Data and Sample: Student-level administrative was drawn from the Maryland Longitudinal Data System. The final sample included just over 54,000 students who were (1) enrolled in a Maryland public high school as first-time ninth graders during the 2009-2010 academic year and (2) attended a Maryland public high school in the 2012-2013 academic year.

Measures: The dependent variable was a categorical indicator describing whether a student—who persisted into their fourth year of high school—earned a regular diploma, dropped out, or persisted. Student- and school-level factors, included student demographic, academic, and workforce indicators.

Analysis: First, a novel methodology that is inclusive of all non-graduates was used to identify students who do not earn a regular high school diploma within four or five years. Next, a series of multilevel logit models were run to assess the combined impact of individual and environmental factors on high school completion in year-5. Finally, data visualization techniques were used to illustrate the pathways taken by persisters and dropouts including, eventual graduation, post-secondary enrollment, and engagement in the workforce.

Results: The analyses conducted for this report identified and described a heretofore-unstudied population of students who persisted into and through their fourth year of high school without earning a high school diploma. Overall, the college and workforce outcomes of persisters compared unfavorably to on-time graduates. Non-white and Hispanic students, as well as students in other vulnerable subgroups tended to have less favorable outcomes in their fourth and fifth years of high school. Results of the multilevel model identified significant between-school and between-district variance in the odds of dropping out versus persisting.

Conclusion: This study offers a first look into the developmental life course of an understudied and high-risk group of young adults. Overall, persisters had less favorable college and workforce outcomes when compared to students who earned a high school diploma. This was true even for persisters who went on to graduate in the fifth year, suggesting the need for interventions that promote college and workforce readiness across the population of persisters. In addition, the results of the multilevel models suggest that system-level interventions may be a robust approach for improving the student retention and later life outcomes. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are discussed.