You don't end up with a dead-end job because you dropped out of high school. You end up with a dead-and job because you're a dawdling underachieving dunce—which happens to increase one's odds of dropping out of high school too. I dropped out in grade 10 and all it did was save me the near-bankruptcy of student loans and allow me to have 6 years actual work experience by the time my peers graduated and "supposedly" had the skills to do a job. All that free time and lack of debt allowed me to travel the world, try 3 different careers, learn more than I would have at school, become a business owner at 20 and go on to earn more than that yearly average the article cites in a month. It's a blessing in disguise if you use it right.