Yes, absolutely. My little brother got caught up in one of those that-doesn’t-really-happen zero tolerance conundrums when one of his friends left an antique, rusted farm tool in the bed of his pickup truck. It was reported by a teacher who walked by it in the parking lot and the school called the police and then started expulsion hearings. They admitted there was never any threat and nothing wrong was done but there was nothing they could do based on the rules. He dropped at of high school strategically before a decision was made and spent what would have been his senior year getting a GED and enrolling in community college.
He went on to finish a 4-year degree at a fine university and is now a Coast Guard officer. High school diplomas are worthless on their own. There isn’t anything you can do with one that you can’t technically do with a GED. I have another family member who dropped out of high school and has both a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and Ph.D. in clinical psychology. She is now a tenured college full professor who never graduated high school. Granted, it takes exceptional people to do that but it isn’t the high school diploma that is important.
I don’t want to sound too open-minded based on my earlier examples. I went to a high school with about a 50% dropout rate. The vast majority of them were completely boneheaded but came by it honestly because their families were fucked up beyond belief as well. Their 16th birthday was like the freeing of the slaves to them because that is when they could drop out and plenty of them did.
The ones that I never understood were those that dropped out senior year. We had people dropping out 2 - 3 months before graduation just because they didn’t want to be branded as an academic overachiever. Every single one of them got lonely after about a week either hung out on the edge of campus or slowly cruised the roads around it blasting music out of their car to show the man. I could try to get them to give advice to younger people about how to not to make those same mistakes but the vast majority of them can only correspond with the general population through censored mail and screened visitation sessions these days.
And remember, in my case above I didn’t even have a GED and still they let me into university. But I agree with those who say in general, it’s best to graduate high school.
just out of curiosity…do employers ever check for a high school diploma?
Obviously, dropping out is going to make it more difficult to go to university. But millions of people have no interest in university. And for other jobs, does the piece of paper matter?
For example, if you drop out of high school and go work as a cook at Dennys. After a few years, they let you work the cash register, too. Then you can get promoted to assistant manager pretty easily. I know people who did this at a smaller chain restaurant.
Then at age 35, if you want to become the manager, does anybody demand to see the HS diploma?
Graduation wasn’t that close. I started kindergarten late, so I was already old for my grade, and I had completely flunked 9th grade and only partially made it up. My mother refused to allow me to withdraw before 18 (my state required parental consent). I turned 18 in June and never went back for my fourth year (I would have had to do 2 more summers of summer school, probably, to graduate roughly on time. Hell naw).
While my home life wasn’t abusive at that time, there was a history and I loathed living with my parents for that reason and others. Without school I worked full time and I moved out into my own place about 6 months after dropping out, long before my classmates graduated.
He is British, so these concepts really do not apply to him. It is a different system. Nobody “graduates” from high school in Britain, although by the time you leave you may or may not have passed certain exams which will affect your prospects of employment or entering university. You can leave school at 16 if you want, and many do. It is not considered “dropping out” and no particular stigma attaches to it.
I did the same thing. I dropped out after 8th grade. In retrospect, I’m not sure I was bullied worse than the average student; I just happened to be a shy, introverted nerdy kid in a very small school (fewer than 20 students per grade), so there was no hope of finding other nerds or introverts whom I could befriend and perhaps survive. Entered the workforce at 14 and I feel like I learned a lot more from my experiences at various jobs than I ever would have at school. Work gave me a broader and more rewarding social experience; I got to work alongside people my own age, adults, senior citizens, and learn how to socialize in an environment that encouraged civility and respect, rather than the cloistered, unrealistic experience that school provided.
It never really seemed to hinder me, either. Never had a job really care that I had a GED rather than a diploma; they were more concerned with work ethic and ability to communicate. When I went to university, they just looked at my GED scores and placement exams. When I applied for scholarships or whatever, they looked at my university GPA, and never asked about high school. Job interviews post-university don’t care about high school; they ask about my degree programs, but don’t care that I never went to high school.
…then again, had I stayed at my high school, it’d be a rather notorious mark on my history, and might actually hinder me a bit. They’re well-known in town, for all the wrong reasons. I do have the sweet memory of watching my former principal being hauled out of the school/church, strapped to a board, escorted by armed federal agents.
I know and have known a lot of OOD/Amish; the boys usually drop out at 14 and some of the girls avoided school altogether. In a way you could consider their entire childhood “homeschooling” for what isn’t all that terrible a way of life.
Me? Didn’t have a choice. My Dad and his siblings and spouses never finished high school; not one of them. The rule for my generation was
You will go to college for two years; you may not flunk out.
You will pay for it yourself.
Or we will kill you.
I’m not saying we believed them really but I will say that other than Cousin Mery-Ellens 2 year nursing degree we have way more MAs, MSs and PhDs than normal.
Which is why I said “someone like.” If an American 16 or 17 year old made $30m from his own invention, I would have no problem with him dropping out of high school.
Because, of course, all education is just a job ticket, and the world really needs another 25yo who’s staggeringly ignorant except about some abtruse area of programming.
At our college we have some students who dropped out of high school.
The majority of them did it because it was too boring - so they simply took the GED in their junior or senior year and then went straight to college. These are usually the smartest kids in school and they simply saw that another year or two in high school (at least, their high school) was not going to teach them much, if anything.
BTW, I see that GED tests might become a think of the past! Some recent articles mentioned the company that supplies them is doubling the prices and a lot of school districts are opting of other, equally suitable and cheaper tests instead of GED’s.
Dropping out to get a GED in order to go to college early seems viable but only if you actually go and get the GED and go to college. I wonder how many people drop out assuming that they’re going to do that but don’t, either due to laziness, finances, or lack of ability. A mediocre student would probably be better just slogging it out in the classroom and graduating with a traditional high school diploma with a 2.1 GPA than ending up with the stigma of a GED or even nothing.
A lot of homeschooled kids these days take the GED - that might account for some of that number.
Also, it’s my understanding that the GED questions are aimed to be those that the upper 50% of high school grads can do, meaning the average GED holder scores better than the average high school graduate, and even the worst GED holder scored better than half the high school grads.
In other words, it’s not really a “loser” piece of paper, it’s harder that graduating high school.
So… with that in mind, is it really that surprising 5% of college students have one?
I have worked 24 years in my field (gah, has it been that long?)
I have a top 5% job in a very competitive industry. I worked at 7 different companies before I landed this job.
I have never had to prove my education, even show my degree, to a soul. In retrospect I could have done the whole thing straight out of hight school, as all my work related education was learned on the job.
Regardless I am glad to have spent part of my life at a university for the intangibles I learned there, and for the good fortune to never have to wonder ‘what if I had gone’ with regards to my employment.
That and I come from a family of educators. Not going to college was never an option.
There are plenty of ways to educate yourself without going to high school or college. I would venture to say that the independently wealthy could do a pretty good job of it themselves.
I’ve known a few people who’ve done that, and it always boggled my mind. I do think that dropping out can be a legitimate choice for someone, provided they have a plan on how to continue on in life… there’s a point where sometimes, like me, you have to just cut your losses and leave school behind for a while. But people who stick it out for years, then drop out for the hell of it a month or two before graduation? That’s just strange to me.
Depends on their skin color and race; work backwards from that to find your answer regarding finances.
Kids should drop out of public high school early and attend trade schools as soon as possible.