The dropout rate for immigrant and foreign-born students is a huge problem for many schools. One thing we know for certain: The later a foreign-born student begins school in the United States, the higher the chance they will drop out before earning a high school diploma.

Using 2000 US Census data, the Pew Hispanic Trust reported that the average yearly dropout rate of foreign-born students ages 15 to 17 was 11.7 percent. But of those students who had arrived more than eight years earlier, only 5 percent dropped out each year. The dropout rate for those who arrived less than eight years prior was 16.4 percent. The percentage of native-born dropouts was 3.3 percent.

Perhaps even more telling is a student’s prior educational attainment. If a student had received a continuous education and made normal education progress in their home country before migrating to the U.S., the dropout rate was 9.9 percent. However, if the student’s education was interrupted or incomplete, his or her chances of dropping out soared to 70.9 percent.

“It doesn’t really matter if we look at youth from Central or South America, or Asia, regardless of what country they come from the later-arrived youth are much more likely to not be in school,” says Richard Fry, a senior research associate at the Pew Hispanic Trust.

Fry also believes that many teenagers who come to the U.S. to work may never enter the school system, thus inflating those figures.

Norcross High School in suburban Atlanta is one of many schools that’s struggling to keep its immigrant populations engaged and in school. The teachers and administrators learned a lot from their experiences, and you can read about those in our series on diversity in ASBJ’s September issue.

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor