The Importance of Raising Mexican American High School Graduation Rates

Abstract

I discuss in this chapter the relative importance of two different social policy interventions to improve educational attainment. Specifically, interventions could focus on raising high school or college graduation rates. The issue of which intervention to call for was brought home to me in a seminar about my recent book, Italians then, Mexicans now (Perlmann 2005). To some extent, my arguments are particular to the Mexican second generation today, because their high school dropout rates are distinctly high. But to the extent that other groups’ rates approximate those of the Mexican second generation, the point will be true for these other groups as well. In any case, whatever is true for the Mexicans is critical to know because they are by far the largest single immigrant group, and Mexicans are an even larger proportion of low-skill immigrants.