他们缀学 你要买单

(You) can't put a price on a good education. But the cost of dropping out is huge, and it's not just the dropouts who suffer. A group called Alliance for Excellent Education finds current US dropout rates are a major drag on local economies. But here's the other side of the coin. Cutting dropout rates, keeping kids in school could boost salaries, home sales, tax revenues, job growth like nothing else. Now Susan Lisovicz's joining me now from the New York Stock Exchange to dig a little deeper into those numbers and what a difference it could make. Susan.

What a difference, Kyra, is right you know. We know that there's a moral imperative to keep our kids in school. We know there's a correlation between dropout rates and crime and demand for social services. Now we have hard numbers from the Alliance for Excellent Education on the economic argument for keeping kids in school. It used financial software to calculate the economic impact overall and it's a jaw-dropper, Kyra. It looks at the class of 2008 which saw 600 kids, 600,000 kids drop out. The study says if that number was cut in half, there would be four billion dollars in increased earnings. All that earnings would result in increased spending and investing, which would be enough to support 30,000 new jobs at a time. We could really use it. And with all those jobs and more spending, there will be higher tax receipts. State and local tax revenue, according to the study, would rise by half a billion dollars, Kyra.
We talked so much about stimulus measures. But the study shows just getting a diploma boost the economy, right?

It is an incredible resource that is right there for us. The study's conclusion, Kyra, is that we all have a vested interest in keeping our kids in school. Whether we have kids or not, whether we are car dealer, or realtor, a bank manager, we all benefit from a lower dropout rate. Right now there are 7,000 kids estimated that drop out of school every day. The Alliance's president says that the report underscores the notion that the best economic stimulus package is a high school diploma. Kyra.

All right. So, then, so what cities have the potential to add the most jobs if kids actually stay in school.

Well, you're looking at it right now and these are thousands of jobs we are talking about. LA, we are talking about 4,700 jobs New York City, more than 3,000; Miami, nearly 2,000. So these are cities that certainly would benefit it, all the people who live in them would benefit it as well, Kyra.