Student Suspensions Cost Taxpayers More Than $35 Billion

A student who gets suspended is more likely to drop out of high school and get involved in the criminal justice system. As a result, student suspensions on a national scale can cause forgone tax revenues and national income and an increased involvement in crime and need for social services.

The implication of student suspensions goes beyond a student and their school record. The economic losses force taxpayers to pay big money, according to a report published by the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Researchers of the report looked at the economic value of a high school degree by looking at both the fiscal and social losses. Fiscal losses are those related to tax revenue while social losses relate to its impact on lower income, diminished productivity and higher expenditure on health care due to poorer health.

The analysis used data on national suspension rates from the Department of Education and data that looked at the relationship between suspensions and dropouts. They eventually calculated the costs of dropout rates in dollars and cents, according to US News.

Each additional high school dropout allows $163,000 in fiscal losses while $364,000 in social losses in a single lifetime. The numbers were then added together and multiplied by the number of dropouts caused by suspensions, which is at 67,000. The report says that both in and out-of-school suspensions cost more than $35 billion for 10th grade students.

About 3.5 million public school students were suspended during the school year of 2011-2012 at least once. About 1.55 million of the said number were suspended more than once.

The analysis found that students have an increased likelihood of dropping out of high school by 12 percent if they have been suspended. The rates of school suspension have been on the rise since the 1970s and tend to disproportionately affect students of color.

Removing student suspension cannot only generate billions of dollars in economic activity but it can also increase graduation rates of school districts, according to Daniel J. Losen, director of UCLA's Center for Civil Rights Remedies. Losen explains that the analysis also shows that reducing the racial discipline gap can also reduce social costs.

The report also recommends that school district should carefully monitor suspension rates and start to consider alternatives to suspension. Fortunately, many districts have started using restorative justice programs as a way to correct misbehavior, according to Huffington Post.

The video below takes a look at a campaign called Solutions Not Suspensions that examines how young students are affected by school discipline policies. However, the UCLA report did not evaluate the costs and benefits of using alternative discipline methods to reduce school suspensions.