The inspiration for commissioning The Cost to Australia of Early School Leaving was two-fold. First, it followed on from two landmark reports, produced by the Forum in collaboration with leading Australian research organisations. These reports were Australia’s Youth: Reality and Risk (1998) and Australia’s Young Adults: the Deepening Divide (1999). They highlighted the risk of early school leavers becoming trapped in marginal activity and motivated the Forum to dig deeper to identify more effective policy responses. Second, this report was inspired by a 1992 Canadian report Dropping Out: the Cost to Canada, which attempts to estimate the lifetime costs to the nation of a single-year cohort of early school-leavers. In order to produce The Cost of Early School-Leaving, the Forum turned to NATSEM, a collaborator in both the earlier reports. At the draft stage this report was subject to consultation with a number of key parties including government officials. This report represents a significant contribution to this most important public policy debate. The Cost to Australia of Early School-Leaving 1999 (76 kB)