Washington DC contains pockets of poverty where high school graduation, college attendance, and college completion rates are unacceptably low. The consequences of dropping out of high school are severe. Young people who drop out are more likely to be unemployed, living in poverty, depending on public assistance, in prison, and absent from the civic life of their communities than high school graduates. At https://writing-service.org/ you can see our research article focused on the statistics of such situations.

Disengagement from school begins early, with the majority  of dropouts occurring before  the 10th grade. Poverty exacerbates the problem severely, since poor youth are more likely to be struggling academically and to have parents who are either absent or did not complete high school themselves.

In spite of the fact that there are over 500 organizations in DC working with youth, few are working with large numbers of 8th and 9th graders, especially offering programs focused on college and career exploration and planning, so the work of CCC is critically important.