What does this measure?

The number of students who dropped out of high school, as a percentage of their cohort. The cohort is the class of ninth–graders beginning high school together.

Why is this important?

High school dropouts face fewer and declining career opportunities than graduates and are more likely to end up unemployed, in prison or on public assistance. Since they tend to have lower earnings, dropouts also contribute less in local, state and federal taxes, and depend more on programs such as food stamps and Medicaid health insurance for the poor.

How are Cayuga and Seneca counties performing?

About 11% of the 2006 cohorts in both Cayuga and Seneca counties had dropped out by the time the class was ready to graduate in 2010, higher than the state (excluding NYC) dropout rate of 7% for 2006 cohort. Dropout rates for Cayuga and Seneca were also higher than that of the comparison counties, which ranged from 5% in Ontario County to 10% in Onondaga County. Dropout rates in Cayuga declined from 16% for the 2001 cohort, while Seneca’s rate was 2 points lower than the 13% that dropped out of the class of 2001. Dropout rates were highest in Auburn and Port Byron in Cayuga (both 14%) and in Waterloo (15%) and South Seneca (12%) in Seneca.

Notes about the data

Data for earlier years were not comparable because cohorts were not tracked in the same way.