Socioeconomic status (SES), as indicated by family income and parental education, is associated with higher levels of likelihood to complete high school. McNeal (1995), for example, found that high SES students are less likely to drop out of high school. Haveman and Wolfe (1995) found that family income/poverty ratio increases the likelihood to graduate from high school, after controlling for background factors. They also found that the number of years of poverty decreases number of years of schooling completed, after controlling for background factors. Last, they found that number of years spent with family's post-tax income was below the poverty line decreased likelihood to graduate from high school, after controlling for background factors.

Racial and ethnic background has been found to predict likelihood to graduate from high school. Research has consistently demonstrated that Black and Hispanic adolescents are more likely to graduate from high school than White adolescents after controlling for background factors such as SES, although Blacks and Hispanics, even more so, are less likely to graduate from high school than Whites. Blacks and Hispanics are less likely to drop out after controlling for prior achievement as indicated by test performance and SES (McNeal, 1995). Haveman and Wolfe (1995) found that being Black and that being a Black female independently increased likelihood of graduating from high school and number of years of schooling completed, after accounting for background factors. Among adolescent males who were disadvantaged, as indicated by the their mother's status as a high school noncompleter, Blacks and Hispanics were found to be more likely to graduate from high school and to attend college than Whites (Tienda & Ahituv, 1996). Mensch and Kandel (1988), in an analysis of NLSY79 data, found that being black was associated with decreased likelihood of dropping out of high school in comparison to being White, while being Hispanic was associated with a decreased likelihood of dropping out of high school in comparison to being White for women only. Cairns, Cairns, and Neckerman (1989) found that Black adolescents, in their analysis of a mostly Southern and rural/suburban sample, were less likely than White adolescents to have dropped out by 11th grade. However, it's noteworthy that national indicators have shown that Black students, and Hispanic students, in particular, have higher dropout rates than white students, so these findings must be taken in that context (U.S. Department of Education, 2000).