Course Credit Accrual and Dropping Out of High School (NCES 2007-018)

This issue brief examines differences in the average number of course credits earned between high school graduates and dropouts, both within and accumulated across academic years, in order to describe enrollment and completion behavior of high school graduates and dropouts. Differences in course credit accrual by selected subjects (English, mathematics, and science) are also reported. Data for this study are drawn from high school transcripts collected in 2005 as part of the first follow-up to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002). These high school transcripts provide enrollment histories, graduation dates, and coursetaking patterns.