What causes students to drop out of school?

This question has been the very key of an experiment conducted by Jeff Jordan, professor at the University of Georgia-Griffin campus, and three economics professors from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia State University.

In their project, titled “The Today and Tomorrow of Kids,” Jordan and his fellow researchers have intensively studied the reasons why high school students leave school early and without a degree, a path that Jordan described as a “one-way ticket to low-wage America.”

Since 2006, the team of professors has surveyed 1,200 middle school students — all eighth-graders — in Spalding County. While most students drop out when they turn 16, they begin to disengage in eighth grade, Jordan said. “Middle school is a difficult age for kids,” he said. Between the ages of 11 and 14 is typically the time “where you either keep kids or you’ll lose them,” he said.

One factor that could impact students’ decision to drop out from school is impatience, the survey found. Jordan and his team found a unique way to come to this conclusion. They asked the students to choose between receiving $49 in a month from now or receiving $50.83 in seven months from now. As most students picked the first amount, the researchers kept raising the second amount to see when it would be appealing enough for students to wait seven months.

The analogy being that investing time in school now to receive a degree later, students’ responses showed that boys were more impatient than girls. The most impatient subgroup was black males. This, however, may also mean that black males are the most risk-averse subgroup.

Another, yet related, aspect that shapes students’ decision to leave high school early is discipline, as it affects students’ views on their future, the experiment found. Students with a higher number of discipline referrals tend to be more impatient. Black males are disproportionately disciplined, compared to other groups, Jordan and his team found. The question remains whether they are more often disciplined because they are more impatient — or the other way around.

After having collected extensive data, the next step in the experiment is a closer look at targeted solutions and incentives to reduce dropout rates, based on students’ feedback.