Personal interactions in school occur in a hierarchy: freshmen face seniors, and teachers control students. One phenomenon this produces is bullying, widespread enough in schools to cause alarm on a national scale. Part of the problem is the introduction of technology, which carries the seeds of cyber-bullying, and there have been numerous examples of student suicides, certainly the most negative impact bullying can have. Bullied students may innocently report they "cannot get along" with others, but increases in dropout rates are directly linked to this problem.
The current economy, coming out of a national recession, necessitates that some students choose the promise of salaries now over their educators' promises of better ones in the future. At least one-fourth of all high school dropouts give job-related reasons for leaving, most saying they have to work for the added income their families need. At college level, the rate rises to 71 percent; even though some students attempt to balance school and work, they are forced by time constraints to make both of those pursuits part time, thus ensuring less success in either endeavor.
The lack of belonging is most frustrating for students in high school and college settings, and much of the time the disconnect is a racial or cultural one. International students, blacks and Hispanics continue to feel a sense of disenfranchisement in larger educational systems where they perceive that Caucasian-centered discrimination exists. The statistical irony of this is that white drop-outs report they feel just as discriminated against, particularly when other races or cultures close themselves off into exclusive groups. Racial divisiveness, it seems, exists in every culture.
The top three things people that quit school have in common are universals: lack of safety, lack of money and lack of belonging. The unfortunate irony that infuses this paradigm is the fact that people feel it at every level. Students from elementary to college report less safe environments, fewer economic choices and less sense of connection to their peers, all of it taking place in a country that prides itself on safety, economic growth and cultural accessibility.