Solutions to Reduce the College Dropout Rate - Essay Example

The high college dropout rate also has many financial implications upon the society as the dropout crisis causes a net loss of $319 billion in the earnings (“President Obama Announces”). Alternative education options, improved parent-teacher and teacher-student understanding, and the implementation of programs to improve the students’ readiness for college education can help reduce the college dropout rates. Lack of interest in education is the reason behind the dropout of 50 per cent of the population of the dropping out students whereas more than 66.

66 per cent of these students dropout because they don’t get any motivation or inspiration from the educational institutions to continue the education (“President Obama Announces”). This means that a student’s decision to leave the college can be temporal and the student may want to resume the studies from where they were left if provided an opportunity. To facilitate such students, the government should provide the students with alternative pathways to education and training. They can be transfer colleges or work-based experiences that would enable the students to continue their academic and professional development even after leaving the education in the proper channel.

This way, a student is provided with an opportunity to revert to the regular channel after some time. Colleges should also alter their teaching practices to provide more individualized and personalized support to the students for engaging them more. A teacher’s understanding of the students’ psychology is fundamental to his/her display of appropriate behavior towards them. “Experience indicates that helping the high-risk student establish a linkage with the college through either a personal relationship with a staff member, involvement in campus organizations, or a campus-based work assignment appears to be the single-most effective means of reducing attrition” (Jones 17).

Increasing the engagement of parents in the process can also be quite helpful. The teachers should frequently interact with the parents to find out ways to mutually encourage the students to study. This also makes a teacher better able to understand the psychology of individual students. The US President Obama has recently taken some initiatives to improve the condition in the US. He challenged the states to locate the high schools in the US in which the graduation rate is less than 60 per cent and offered funds to change increase it.

The Obama Administration has reserved a total of $3.5 billion for funding the measures to improve the graduation rate in the schools that have been persistently showing a low performance on the graduation. In addition to that, the FY 2011 budget prepared by the Obama Administration is inclusive of $900 million for the support of the School Turnaround Grants. President Obama’s efforts are directed at preventing the school dropout in the US and making the learning more involving for the students by use of appropriate recovery strategies.

The Obama Administration has also prepared a College Pathways Program with an investment worth $100 million for the promotion of a culture of the students’ readiness for colleges in the high schools. The programs prepared to achieve this provide the students with the opportunity to gain the college credit as well as the high school diploma simultaneously. Concluding, the college dropout rates have been on an increase everywhere both within the