Texas Map Reveals Areas With Most High School Dropouts

A map shows which counties in Texas have the highest percentage of high school dropouts.

Newsweek analyzed the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which tracked the number of residents 25 and over with at least a high school diploma, to determine which of the state's counties had the highest percentage of dropouts.

That analysis found that Kenedy County—which only has a population of about 350—had the highest percentage of high school dropouts, at 66.8 percent.

Other sparsely populated counties also had high percentages of dropouts, according to the analysis. Hudspeth County had 45 percent, followed by Gaines County with 39.6 percent, Presidio County with 38.4 percent and Zapata County with 34.5 percent.

The least populous of Texas' 254 counties—Loving—had the lowest percentage of high school dropouts, with just 3.1 percent.

That was followed by Collin County, which encompasses part of the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan area, with 4.5 percent. Mills County residents has about 4.9 percent of residents without high school diplomas, Williamson County has 5.4 percent and Hood County has 5.8 percent.

Texas' most populous county—Harris County, with more than 4.7 million residents—has a relatively high number of high school graduates. About 17.5 percent of residents there do not have high school diplomas, according to Newsweek's analysis.

That's similar to Dallas County, the second most populous county, where about 17.8 percent of residents do not have high school diplomas.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott's office has touted the state's high school graduation rate as among the highest in the nation. About 89.7 percent of students who started ninth grade in the 2018-19 graduated within four years, according to a 2023 report from the Texas Education Agency.

Texas ranks far higher than the average state graduation rate of 79 percent for the 2021-22 school year, according to U.S. News, but several states—including Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts—had higher rates.

It comes as students are still working to recover from the huge learning setbacks that came with the COVID-19 pandemic, while rates of chronic absenteeism have shot up in recent years.

Those who end up dropping out of high school could face adverse consequences well into adulthood, according to Jennifer Lansford, a research professor of public policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.

"The long-term consequences of dropping out of high school can be very negative for individuals who drop out, their families, and society as a whole," Lansford told Newsweek.

She pointed to research that she and colleagues carried out using data from children that were followed from the age of 5 until 27.

That research found that individuals who dropped out of high school were nearly four times more likely to be receiving government assistance, were twice as likely to have been fired two or more times, and were more than three times more likely to have been arrested since the age of 18.