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<p>Michigan high schools’ 4-year graduation rate (average for all schools) did decline from 75.95% in 2010 to 74.33% in 2011, the first year of the new standards. But it bounced back to 76.24% in 2012, slightly higher than it was before the new standards went into effect. The dropout rate also fell in 2012, to 10.71% compared to 11.13% in 2011 and 11.07% in 2010. So HS graduating standards don’t appear to be the issue.</p>
<p>The bigger changes are demographic. Michigan suffered an actual loss of population in some years over the past couple of decades, but now appears to be more or less stable. But it’s an aging population with fewer school-aged kids. Apart from the Ann Arbor area, Michigan’s economy also doesn’t attract a lot of young families from out-of-state. Michigan also has a relatively small immigrant population, just 6.0%, or slightly less than half the national average (12.9%); immigrants tend to have substantially higher birth rates than non-immigrants (immigrants account for 23% of U.S. births despite representing just 13% of the population), and immigrants attend college at higher rates than non-immigrants. Also, the overall birth rate of 1.9 live births per woman over her lifetime projects out to a declining population unless you get get substantial net in-migration from other states or other countries, which Michigan has not seen in several decades. In short, Michigan is now producing fewer HS graduates because it’s been producing fewer kids for the last couple of decades, and that deficit isn’t being made up by in-migration.</p>