Facts and Figures about Literacy

In South Carolina, 8,100 students drop out each year. This is forty-five every school day.

 

Is preventing dropouts expensive? Not as expensive as keeping teens in jail...in South Carolina it cost taxpayers $70,000 for every inmate per year.

 

Dropouts are eight times more likely to be in jail or prison than high school graduates.

 

Dropouts earn $1,000,000 less over a lifetime than college graduates.

 

Dropouts earn $9,200 per year less than high school graduates. They are eligible for only 12% of new jobs.

 

Nationwide, nearly one in three U.S. high school students drop out before graduating.

 

The Greenville Literacy Association ranks in the top 3% of the community-based adult literacy organizations in the nation, both in the number of students served and in the number of active volunteers.

 

In South Carolina, working-age residents with college degrees are 45% more likely to participate in the workforce than those with less than a high school diploma.

 

In South Carolina, 431,470 people have not completed high school or received an equivalent degree.

 

Workers who lack a high-school diploma earn a mean monthly income of $452, compared to $1829 for those with a bachelor's degree.

 

In South Carolina, 44,182 people speak little or no English.

 

In South Carolina, 560,466 people without a college degree are living in families whose combined incomes are less than a living wage. There are fewer than 4.5 million people living in the state.

 

The National Institute of Literacy states that 43% of people with the lowest literacy skills live in poverty. Of these people, 70% have no job or a part-time job.

 

The average reading level of a prison inmate in South Carolina is below 3rd grade.