“The Higher Dropout Rate of Foreign-Born Teens: The Role of Schooling Abroad” is available from the Pew Hispanic Center.
Foreign-born youths who were already behind in school before arriving in the United States make up a large proportion of the nation’s teenage high school dropouts, concludes a study by the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center.
Richard Fry, a senior research associate for the Pew Hispanic Trust, found in analyzing data from the 2000 U.S. Census that while only 8 percent of the nation’s teenagers were born in other countries, nearly 25 percent of teenage dropouts were born outside of the United States. Of those foreign-born teenage dropouts, 40 percent had recently arrived in the country and had already been behind in school in their home countries.
