75% of America's state prison inmates are high school dropouts (Harlow, 2003).

* 59% of America's federal prison inmates did not complete high school (Harlow, 2003).

* High school dropouts are 3.5 times more likely than high school graduates to be arrested in their lifetime (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2003a).

* A 1% increase in high school graduation rates would save approximately $1.4 billion in incarceration costs, or about $2,100 per each male high school graduate (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2003a).

* It costs $11,570 to educate a single child for one year in 2005 in the Atlanta Public School System. Robert J. Eger, III, Ph.D., Cost Per Student Analysis Update, at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University. 

 During November of 2001,
the Georgia Jail Summary reported the number of
individuals in county jails at 29,636. The number consisted
of 17,366 awaiting trial, 4,763 county inmates, 4,235 other
inmates and 3,268 sentenced to state prisons or parole /
probation issues.

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