Too many adolescents drop out of high school and then struggle with high rates of unemployment, incarceration, drug use and non-marital births. The high cost of these mistakes – both to the teens themselves as well as society – make a solid case for investing public funds in programs that have been shown to work, as well as in additional research on these disconnected adolescents and youth.

On April 27, The Future of Children, a joint project between Princeton University and the Brookings Institution, will host an event to release a new journal, “Transition to Adulthood,” that is devoted to research and analysis of the challenges young people face in making the transition to adulthood in modern America. The event will focus on describing and analyzing second-chance programs that aim to help high school drop-outs, and will feature presentations by and discussions among researchers, community program operators and Obama administration officials.