Education is something that everyone must have, wherever they are living, but unfortunately, not everyone has perfect access to education, even if you are living in a modern country like the United States.
Politicians and important people look at the education statistics to see whether a country is investing good money into its education system since it is an important part of a country’s development.
Politicians always talk about more investment in public education and many more other things that make education important to take a look at.
The best way to understand how a country is doing with its education is to take a look at its statistics.
We will look at the US Department of Education National Center of Education’s statistics for 2023.
Statistics On Students With Disabilities
Since 1975, the right for disabled people to get an education without any problem has been under protection by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, also known as IDEAC.
In that regard, there are a lot of people with disabilities freely studying in the American school system, making this country’s education system one of the quality ones for everyone.
In 2020, about 14% of students received special education services under this act.
Among this 14%, the highest disability we see is specific learning disability with 33%, and speech or language impairment follows it by 19%.
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High School Student Education Statistics
High school is the necessary step for education in most parts of the world, including the United States.
Looking at the statistics for high school education, we see a graduation rate of around 86% in 2019. This number increased from 79% compared to 2010, a decade ago.
Overall, the highest graduation rate is in Iowa and Alabama, with 92%.
There are also high school dropouts who are between 16- to 24-year-old and not registered to a school, and have no high school diploma.
In 2019, we see that there were 2 million dropout status people between 16-24 years old, and the percentage was around 5%.
University Student Education Statistics
University generally has lower student rates than high school, and we see more dropouts because it is not necessary to hold a university diploma and to even register for it.
In 2019, there were 16.6 million students, 57% of them were female, and 43% were male.
Among those who started studying at university, about 63% of them were able to finish their studies within six years, no matter if the length of the department was 4 or 6 years.
US High School Graduate Statistics by Year
| Year | Percentage |
|---|---|
| 2011 | 79.6% |
| 2012 | 80.6% |
| 2013 | 81.7% |
| 2014 | 82% |
| 2015 | 83% |
| 2016 | 84% |
| 2017 | 85% |
| 2018 | 85% |
| 2019 | 85% |
US College Graduate Statistics by Year
| Year | Percentage |
|---|---|
| 2006 | 48% |
| 2007 | 48% |
| 2008 | 49% |
| 2009 | 49% |
| 2010 | 49% |
| 2011 | 48% |
| 2012 | 48% |
| 2013 | 48% |
| 2014 | 48% |
| 2015 | 49% |
| 2016 | 50% |
US High School Graduate Statistics by Gender
| Year | Female | Male |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 87.6% | 86.6% |
| 2011 | 88% | 87.1% |
| 2012 | 88% | 87.3% |
| 2013 | 88.6% | 87.6% |
| 2014 | 88.9% | 87.7% |
| 2015 | 88.8% | 88% |
| 2016 | 89.6% | 88.5% |
| 2017 | 90% | 89.1% |
| 2018 | 90.2% | 89.4% |
| 2019 | 90.5% | 89.6% |
| 2020 | 91.3% | 90.6% |
US College Graduate Statistics by Gender
| Year | Female | Male |
|---|---|---|
| 2006 | 26.9% | 29.2% |
| 2007 | 28% | 29.5% |
| 2008 | 28.8% | 30.1% |
| 2009 | 29.1% | 30.1% |
| 2010 | 29.6% | 30.3% |
| 2011 | 30.1% | 30.8% |
| 2012 | 30.6% | 31.4% |
| 2013 | 31.4% | 32% |
| 2014 | 32% | 31.9% |
| 2015 | 32.7% | 32.3% |
| 2016 | 33.7% | 33.2% |
| 2017 | 34.6% | 33.7% |
| 2018 | 35.3% | 34.6% |
| 2019 | 35.4% | 35.4% |
| 2020 | 36.7% | 36.7% |
| 2021 | 36.6% | 36.6% |
The Verdict
To conclude, education is a complex issue for many countries, and the United States is no exception as it is common to see high graduation rates, but there are also some dropouts even at the high school level.
The United States overall has a good high school and university graduation rate, 86% and 63%, respectively1.
This shows that even though there are dropouts from time to time, we also see many people studying and graduating from both high school and university at the same time.
The United States also protects those with disability both in high school and in university or at other levels of education.
Source
Shefali Jain is a Content Writer & Editor at USWorkforce.org
After completing her graduation in hospitality, Shefali decided to follow her passion and started writing. Shefali has been writing for two years now and contributes to our website as a skilled editor and content writer with strong research skills. Writing product and service reviews, biographies, and book reviews are some of her key areas, among many others in which she specializes. In her time at the organization, she has written and edited content on a range of topics, including employment law, human resources, and business management.
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