THANKS, W:

The overall high school dropout rate in the U.S. has also fallen substantially in recent decades, matching a record low of 6% in 2016. Hispanics have accounted for much of that decline. Since 1999, the earliest year for which data on all major races and ethnicities are available, the dropout rate among Hispanics has fallen by 24 percentage points, compared with 9 points among blacks, 3 points among whites and 2 points among Asians. (Hispanics, however, still have the highest dropout rate of these four groups.)

The decline in the Hispanic dropout rate is particularly noteworthy given the large increase in Hispanic enrollment in U.S. public and private schools. Between 1999 and 2016, the number of Hispanics enrolled in public and private nursery schools, K-12 schools and colleges increased 80%, from 9.9 million to 17.9 million. By comparison, enrollment during the same period increased 30% among Asians (from 3.6 million to 4.7 million) and 4% among blacks (from 11.3 million to 11.7 million) while falling 14% among whites (from 47.3 million to 40.6 million). Total public school enrollment grew 7%, from 72.4 million to 77.2 million.

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