College Dropouts Waste Billions of Taxpayer Dollars

If you’re thinking about dropping out of college, think about whose money you’re wasting. You could be wasting your own hard earned cash or your parents’, but I bet you never considered how dropping out of college wastes taxpayers’ money.
According to a study released on Monday, states have spent almost $6.2 billion on students who did not come back for their sophomore year. Additionally, states spent $1.4 billion, and the federal government spent $1.5 billion in grants for students who didn’t come back the following year.
The study, “Finishing the First Lap: The Cost of First-Year Student Attrition in America’s Four-Year Colleges and Universities” acquired data from four-year colleges and universities between 2003 and 2008. The dollar amounts for the study were based on government data and configured by the nonprofit American Institutes for Research.
The study is supposed to put an economic emphasis on the improvement of completion rates, but the study may cause some taxpayers to criticize the government’s spending on colleges. Some taxpayers may say that pushing college students into completion will only waste more tax dollars.
However, the Obama administration’s main focus is making college more accessible and to encourage more students to get through school with a diploma or certificate.
Mark Schneider, a vice president at the American Institutes for Research, said the purpose of the report is to highlight the wasteful costs of students not making it to graduation day.
“We’re all about college completion right now,” Schneider said. “And I agree 100 percent with the college completion agenda and we need a better-educated adult population and workforce.”
Via The Huffington Post
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