Students drop out of high school every day. In fact, over a million people who enter ninth grade every year do not graduate with their fellow students four years later. About seven thousand students drop out every single school day and go without a high school diploma.

There are lots of reasons that students decide to drop out, but they do so at a significant cost to themselves. High school dropouts average less future earnings and greater lost opportunities than their same-age peers.

A dropout earns, over his or her lifetime, an average of $260,000 less than a high school graduate. This loss of income also results in loss of opportunity, a lower standard of living and lower sense of satisfaction with their jobs. Even their children are less likely to succeed in school.

Fortunately, there is hope. There is another trend happening at the same time. More and more dropouts are able to reverse these outcomes by choosing to go back and get their diplomas later in life. They are doing so because it no longer involves stepping back into a high school or alternative education building. It can all be done through the internet and even at a public library.

New online programs from places like Belford High School even offer these students the opportunity to use old high school credits and work experience toward their diplomas.

Now former dropouts are reversing the bleak future outlook and learning that they can change their life and make more money by just getting their own high school diploma.