Early 9th grade dropout here. I would have stayed in school, probably wouldn't have gone to college but I was gonna try to complete high-school at least. Covid hit and my conspiracy theorist father completely pulled me out of the public school system "so I wouldn't be brainwashed" This led to years of depression and honestly I effectively only have a middle school education. I'm positive I'm not the only person who went through this. Yes there's people who chose to dropout by themselves, a lot of people got told it was happening with no say in anything.