Common Good Forecaster

What would happen over time in a local community if the dropout rate were cut in half?

The Common Good Forecaster projects how a change in the education profile of the nation, a state, or local community is linked to wide-ranging ripple effects in ten critical social and economic indicators.

Now available online, the Common Good Forecaster shows how cutting high school dropout rates would alter key factors in health (such as life expectancy and obesity rates), in financial stability (such as median personal earnings and the poverty rate), in community involvement (such as voting and incarceration rates), and even in education results for the next generation (children's reading proficiency rates). While education is vital for getting a stable and self-supporting job, the cascade of changes extends into many other non-economic quality of life issues.

Click on liveunited.org/forecaster or measureofamerica.org/forecaster, and select Oregon to see how the forecaster works.

A high school dropout is four times more likely to be unemployed than a college graduate. The Common Good Forecaster shows the effects of improving high school graduation rates, and getting more college graduates on unemployment and median incomes.

In 2007, the median income in Oregon is $30, 824, and 10.7 percent living in poverty. Those figures are calculated with 27% of the population with a high school diploma or GED, and 28% with college degrees.




See what happens when we increase the percentage of people with high school diplomas and college degrees. Unemployment goes down, and median incomes rise.