By Autry
Frankfort, KY – Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear says high school graduates are key to a strong economy. In 2009, about six-thousand Kentucky students left high school at 16, the current minimum dropout age. The governor today joined former UK basketball great Jamal Mashburn in asking lawmakers to raise the state's dropout age to 18.
"On the average, dropouts earn about 68 hundred dollars less annually than a high school graduate," Beshear said. "And that'll figure up over a lifetime to 253-hundred-thousand dollars.
The governor's dropout bill passed the house last year, but was never brought up for a vote in the Senate.