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Shocking Infographic of American High School Graduation Rates by Geography

State of disgrace

By Rain Noe - July 7, 2015

in design.edu

America has some great colleges, and folks send their kids from around the world to attend our Ivy League schools and design schools. So what the heck is wrong with our high schools? The Hechinger Report's Data Editor Sarah Butrymowicz put together this infographic showing U.S. high school graduation rates by geography, which believe it or not, no one had thought to do before. And the results are pretty shocking.

As you can see, whether or not you graduate from high school has a lot to do with your state. Take a look at this:

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The southern states are doing horribly, with the exception of Texas, which is really kicking ass.

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I was also surprised to see that my home state of New York has a totally undeserved reputation for being an "educated" state; we've got way more of the lower 75% green than the 100% dark blue.

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This should also put paid to the notion that the coasts are covered in intellgentsia and the flyover states are dumb. The midwest is delivering some solid results.

We can also see that district policies apparently go a long way towards influencing graduation rates. Look at the stark difference along the Texas-Louisiana border:

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With these dismal figures thus exposed, you may be surprised to learn that there is a trend for families around the world to ship their childrn to the U.S. to get an American high school education. According to an article in the L.A. Times,

The number of [foreign] students attending American high schools on F-1 visas has increased from about 1,700 in 2009 to more than 80,000 in 2014, according to statistics compiled by the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel.

I hope the foreign parents thinking of doing this in the future take a look at that map first.

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Rebekah Winegarner

9 years ago

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It'd be interesting to see this graphic compared to maps of population density and income (http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/01/05/poverty-map/?ref=multimedia)

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Alex Thinks

9 years ago

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http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-texas-miracle/
The following is a good example of how skewed reporting on graduation rates can get, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-texas-miracle/. It outlines fraud in Texas.

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Doug Boyd

9 years ago

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too many factors weigh into graduation rates for a solid conclusion to be drawn from this map...pretty sure a, "grain of salt" approach should be taken here

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Haiden G

9 years ago

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I'm sure you graduated high school, but there's a typo on "children" in the second to last paragraph. ;)

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- Rain Noe
  
  Haiden G
  
  9 years ago
  
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  Ooh good ctch!
  
  I mean, good ey!
  
  Dammt!
  
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Matthew Wilkins

9 years ago

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Arkansas and Tennessee aren't part of the South?

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