The United States’ sluggish economy has been bad news for lots of families across the country, but it has contributed to a piece of good news: High school graduation rates are the highest they’ve been in decades. According to a recent federal report, more than 3.1 million public school students received high school diplomas in 2010 (the most recent year included in the report). That’s a graduation rate of about 78.2 percent for those who entered the system as freshmen four years earlier—and the best graduation rate the country has seen since 1974. Only 3.4 percent of students actually dropped out during that time, down significantly from its high of 4.4 percent in 2007. There are potentially dozens of factors that contributed to this uptick, but one of the biggies is that kids who might opt to leave school can’t find jobs. The unemployment rate among youth is still sky-high, and there are very few jobs available for folks who don’t have a high school education. With that in mind, more kids figure they might as well stay in school to get that precious piece of sheepskin. (Los Angeles Times)

Paul Asay has covered religion for The Washington Post, Christianity Today, Beliefnet.com and The (Colorado Springs) Gazette. He writes about culture for Plugged In and wrote the Batman book God on the Streets of Gotham (Tyndale). He lives in Colorado Springs with wife, Wendy, and two children. Follow him on Twitter.