[merrylander]

There may be hope, watched two episodes on the Newshour of schools in Texas of all places, trying to stem the dropout rate. They are offering university level courses in addition to the regular high school curricula. Seems many kids dropped out from boredom (How well I know that route). At one major school one student received a two year college degree before graduating high school.

In some cases the university professors come to the high school, in other cases the students go to the university. They even accredit some of the high school teachers to teach the courses.