Drop Out Rates

Recently our school newspaper did a thing about drop outs, following up on them at other places. That wasn't what interested me in this thought, by any means, but reading a chapter in my book reminded me of it. In my book it stated that 1/3 of seventeen and eighteen year olds drop out of high school. Along with that, it cited that we rank 11th in the world of students who complete high school, when we used to be 1st. That's not right. I don't know why students feel the need to drop out (the book says that they simply 'hate being there'). That 'i hate being here' complaint doesn't fly with me. I hate being at school, honestly. I don't like a lot of the people, the condition of our text books are pathetic, I detest being looked down on by most of my teachers.... I could go on a rant if I really wanted to. However, I recognize without this diploma which I'm getting in just a few short weeks, I won't become anything (much less a teacher).
The drop out rates in America disgust me- I just don't understand how people can say 'oh well screw this, I'm done' and walk out on their education like that. Maybe it's because I've only had one person graduate college in my family, ever....and I know I don't want to wind up like the rest of my family working for only ten dollars and some cents an hour.
Either way, my point is that I think there should be more enforcement regarding drop out rates, even if it required students to graduate (New Mexico has a law like this- mandatory graduation for all high school students).
I also have this video, it's basically a bunch of high school drop outs talking about their experiences post dropping out......: