When John Lynch first became governor in 2007, he made increasing the mandatory education age part of his platform, stating in his inaugural address that “a high school diploma is the minimum price of admission for most jobs.”

At the time, New Hampshire already had one of the lowest dropout rates in the country. However, in 2009, the state took a step designed to keep students in school, and hopefully to graduation, by changing the age students were allowed to leave school from 16 years old to 18. Students were also allowed to leave school when they earned a diploma or high school equivalency, if that was before age 18.

Lynch noted that those who leave school without a diploma face lower incomes, are more likely to be unemployed, have poorer health outcomes and are more likely to be in jail or prison than those who have at least a high school education.

Many of those outcomes remain true today. According to the New England Board of Higher Education, as of 2016, over a 40-year career, someone without a diploma can expect to earn up to $434,064 less than a high school graduate.

In 2016, according to data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau and American Community Survey, those with less than a high school diploma had a median income of $27,360 in New Hampshire, while the median income of a graduate was $32,878.

In that same year, those with a high school diploma but no college had an unemployment rate of about 5% in New Hampshire, or about 7.4% across New England. In comparison, those without a high school diploma had an unemployment rate of 7.1% in New Hampshire, or 10.8% in New England.

Did it work?

Administrators in local schools say the law has been a positive change overall, both in keeping students in school and in changing how educators think about high school education. Tom Ronning, the principal of Wilton-Lyndeborough Cooperative Middle High School, has prior experience both in public schools and 25 years as the president of the board of directors for an alternative school, The Granite Hill School in Newport.

"I have first-hand knowledge that students who remain in school -- and graduate -- are more likely to have better skills working with peers, volunteer in various ways, vote and be involved in community activities, thus contributing positively to society," Ronning said. 

Ronning said that at 16, students may not be able to see the larger picture of what kind of difference a diploma makes in their lives.

"At the moment they are thinking about the here and now, not their future such as an increased earning potential, or employment opportunities," Ronning said. "A student who does not truly understand their decision to drop out of school also would not understand that the decision would hinder their possibility of attending college or vocational training programs in the future, which could enhance career prospects -- sometimes requested by employers."

David Dustin, principal at Conant Middle High School, repeated the sentiment.

"I think the change is absolutely necessary," Dustin said. "Learners younger than 18 don't always know their paths yet, and especially in light of the many pressures against finishing school, that have only increased since COVID, having laws that keep kids in school have become even more important to encouraging learners to finish school and set up their pathway for success."

Graduation ratesthen and now

Half of the states, including New Hampshire, require students to be 18 before leaving school. In the other half, students are allowed to leave schooling at either 16 or 17, depending upon the state.

In 2023, according to a report from U.S. News and World Report, Virginia and West Virginia had the highest and second-highest graduation rates in the country, both over 91%. Virginia requires students to be 18 to drop out, while West Virginia allows it at 17. New Mexico, Arizona and Alaska had the lowest graduation rates that year, all of which only mandate attendance until 16.

In New Hampshire, the total number of students leaving school without a degree is down significantly, but so are student populations, meaning the percentage of dropouts has not shifted significantly, according to New Hampshire Department of Education reports.

In 2009, when the state passed the new law regarding dropout age, there were 1,127 students who dropped out of the public school system without a degree, or about 1.72% of the total public high school population. This was already one of the lowest rates in the country.

That year, ConVal had 13 dropouts, or 1.2%. Jaffrey-Rindge had four, or 0.79%. Mascenic Regional had seven, or 1.65%, and Wilton-Lyndeborough had seven, a 2.46% dropout rate.

Comparatively, in the 2022-2023 school year, the most-recent data available from the state's Department of Education, there were a total of 709 dropouts in the state, or about 1.33% of the total public high school population. ConVal had one dropout, Jaffrey-Rindge had four, Mascenic had four and Wilton-Lyndeborough had none.

The view fromMassachusetts

Neighboring Massachusetts has also considered raising its dropout age to 18, and although the age remains 16, a new effort to do so has arisen.

In 2009, the same year New Hampshire increased its mandatory education age, the Boston-based Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy published a paper titled “Raise the Age, Lower the Dropout Rate?” which explored raising the dropout age in Massachusetts.

In their report, they described the main positions of those in favor of increasing the age as ways to reduce the number of dropouts, influence educator behavior by making them less likely to “give up on” or “push out” challenging students, update attendance requirements that were relics of an agrarian society, meet a moral obligation to keep students in school and to “send a message” that a state takes its dropout problems seriously.

The five main arguments given against increasing the age were that it would have little to no impact, that policymakers’ and school administrators’ focus should be to make their schools places students want to attend, that it would increase human and financial resources needed to enforce the law, that increasing the graduation age would be a violation of parents’ rights and that it would potentially cause negative consequences of keeping students in school who do not want to be there. 

Despite the benefits to students of increasing the mandatory graduation age cited in the report, the center recommended against increasing the age “due to lack of empirical evidence to support the idea that an increase in compulsory age will decrease dropout rates and increase graduation rates.”

Instead, they urged policymakers to implement policies based on surveys, interviews and focus groups with students, parents and school administrators that identified the problems as “poor relationships between students and teachers; chaotic and unsafe school environments; lack of interest in topics being covered in classes; weak academic skills; and personal problems.”

A new effort to increase the age has emerged, as the Brockton School Committee recently sponsored a resolution to the Massachusetts Association of School Committees to raise the age. According to MASC Executive Director Glenn Koocher, the Resolutions Committee unanimously recommended the resolution to the Delegate Assembly, which includes representatives of all school districts.

The Delegate Assembly will vote in the fall, Koocher said, and if the resolution passes, the MASC will introduce legislation.

Koocher said that a lot of the advocacy to increase the age has come from larger, economically disadvantaged districts worried that students who drop out at 16 would miss out on the opportunities that come with a high school diploma.

“If you’re out at 16, you’re short-changing yourself,” Koocher said. “It’s going to cost more, but it would keep kids in school longer.”

Koocher also said attendance and dropout rates are part of determining a school’s performance, but acknowledged any law changing the dropout age has to be enforceable.

“What are you going to do if a kid refuses to go to school?” he said. “How much policing can the state do?”

A change in perspective

"It really has forced schools to take a broader-picture look," Ronning said of changing the allowed dropout age. "It forced schools to take a hard look, and decide, 'How are we going to meet these student's needs?’"

Public education has undergone significant changes in the past 15 years, administrators said, and part of that is including a curriculum that serves a wider range of students than those looking for college readiness.

"We have definitely increased programming to help learners succeed that didn't exist pre-2009," Dustin said.

Some of those are alternative pathways to earning credits. In Conant, students can earn credits through what's known as Extended Learning Opportunities, or ELOs, which allow credit for skills learned outside the classroom. These can include an independent study, internship or apprenticeship, or online through the Virtual Learning Academy, or VLACS. The district has also implemented Access, an anchoring and support program, and a more robust post-secondary planning program, as well as more interventions in academic labs.

Dustin said part of the law change has shifted how educators have to think about their curricula.

"I believe mandatory attendance laws have been good for school creativity as well as encouraging learners and families to take better advantage of available options for completion," Dustin said.

In Wilton-Lyndeborough, the district has paired with Milford for Career and Technical Education training programs that can prepare students for careers in trades such as automotive repair or welding, or technology skills, and also have an extended-learning program, that allows for a wide variety of possible community partnerships.

"We had someone in the community who reached out who is a filmmaker, who is willing to help students who have an interest in film-making get started -- we try to cover as many subjects as we can," Ronning said.

Wilton-Lyndeborough has also implemented a tiered diploma system, where students can graduate with a 20-credit degree, the state minimum, or complete a 24-credit diploma.

A bumpy beginning

Ronning said he was an administrator when the change went into effect, and it was not immediately smooth sailing.

"When students were told they couldn't drop out, and would have to stay, there was an impact on the school culture and climate -- that is to say, it hurt the culture and climate," Ronning said.

There were students in his administration that went as far as trying to be thrown out of school, Ronning said. But, he said those were early hiccups that have resolved themselves as students began to enter high school in a world where remaining in school until 18 was the norm.

Dustin said that in the modern day, one of the limitations of the law is how New Hampshire handles home-school programs. He said there is a lack of accountability in the state's home-school requirements that undermines the law's intent in encouraging students to finish school.

"Some learners now transfer to 'home school' rather than completing programs, and this has diminished our ability to reach some of our most at-risk learners," Dustin said. "This lack of accountability for home-school programs is increasingly a barrier to bringing families and learners to the table to find solutions to an individual's needs if there are obstacles to them successfully finishing school."

According to New Hampshire’s laws, a home-schooled student must take an annual educational evaluation to document their progress. There are multiple ways to do this evaluation, including an evaluation by a certified nonpublic school teacher, a national student achievement test, a state student assessment test or any other measure mutually agreed upon by the parent and commissioner of education, resident district superintendent or non-public school principal. The evaluation cannot be used as a basis for terminating a home education program. 

In order to certify that a student has completed a home-school program, the only requirement is to notify the Department of Education. Parents can self-certify that their child has completed high school. Rather than a set amount of credit hours, parents determine when their child has fulfilled graduation requirements, though parents may assign credits to individual courses for the purpose of transcripts. Students are not subject to testing requirements to graduate.

An alternate pathway

Some students who for various reasons can't or don't want to wait until they are 18 decide to take the route of earning a high school equivalency.

Ronning said in the most-recent school year at Wilton-Lyndeborough, the district worked with two students, including providing tutoring outside of school, in assisting them in reaching the high school equivalency.

Dustin said in Conant, there have been multiple examples of students who have worked with the school to graduate with an adult diploma. He said several of those might have otherwise simply dropped out.

"This is a net positive for our learners. It has also encouraged creativity in schools to innovate in how we reach learners as they are older and may become detached from school," Dustin said. "Rather than just having them drop out or give up, we work to find solutions that may not be obvious to make their mandated schooling timeframe more meaningful for them."

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244, or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT. Bill Fonda contributed to this story.