Almost 120,000 high school dropouts in Pennsylvania cost
taxpayers $683 more each year than they contribute. In Elk, McKean,
Cameron and Potter counties, roughly 960 individuals age 16 to 24
are high school dropouts. Efforts are now under way to draw those
individuals back into the workforce and into a self-supporting
career.
“Pennsylvania is home to about 120,000 16 to 24-year-olds who
have dropped out of high school,” said Joan Benzo, president and
chief executive officer of Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children.
“If you review the evidence on what that means, a high school
dropout makes considerably less money, around 40 percent less, than
a high school graduate. They are also twice as likely to be
unemployed as a high school grad and more than four times more
likely to live in poverty.
“That means in the long-term, high school dropouts in
Pennsylvania cost the state about $80 million in publicly-funded
assistance programs on an annual basis. If those individuals were
graduates that had some post-secondary education — an associates
degree or having attended a technical school — they would
contribute over $1 billion in taxes.”
Operation Restart, which is a statewide initiative spearheaded
by Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, focuses on making the
re-engagement of high school dropouts a top priority for the state
in 2010. With the re-engagement of these individuals and their
successful attainment of a GED or even some post-secondary
education, they could each be contributing $9,500 annually, rather
than costing the state, according to Benzo.
Benzo notes that the current workforce includes 25 percent of
workers that have some post-secondary education. However, 70
percent of the jobs available require some post-secondary education
or a bachelor’s degree.
“If you further couple that with Pennsylvania’s incredibly aging
state, in the coming 10-20 years, many baby boomers in Pennsylvania
will retire. We can’t stay economically competitive in this state
unless we consider how to engage every available worker,” she
said.
The initiative aims to address the issue through four main
avenues — at the state and local levels as well as in educational
facilities and local communities.
Strategies include creating a workgroup at the state level that
works on strategies to bring programs to high school dropouts that
will help them get high school and post-secondary credentials;
develop and sustain youth workforce collaboratives in communities
to analyze the population and improve education attainment of
dropouts; initiate several incentives at the educational levels and
establish local and regional centers to provide counseling and
referral services to high school dropouts, as well as tax credits
for employers who provide employment for former dropouts who are
enrolled in further education.
“If we shed some visibility on those challenges and persuade
policy makers of the changes we need to make sure we can re-engage
those kids, we can get them on track to some post-secondary
education,” Benzo said.
Some local programs are already in existence to help engage high
school dropouts. The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry
has contributed funding to a partnership between the North Central
Workforce Investment Board in Ridgway and the Jefferson County
DuBois Area Vocational Technical School, who are working on a pilot
project for that purpose.
“The long and short of it is there are strategies to re-engage
young people that work,” Benzo said. “Some are already in play in
parts of Pennsylvania, and we are calling on gubernatorial
candidates to make the commitment to re-engage young people so they
can get back to work in our economy.”
