In an effort to better understand the various economic benefits that a particular urban area could expect were it to reduce its number of high school dropouts, the Alliance for Excellent Education, has developed a sophisticated economic model in partnership with Economic Modeling Specialists Inc. The model allows various economic projections to be made for the forty-five largest U.S. Census-defined metropolitan statistical areas (MSA), which consist of both a central urban area and the surrounding geographic area that has strong social and economic ties to that city. The projections for economic benefits are estimated using graduation rates calculated by Editorial Projects in Education for all public school districts located within a metropolitan area. As demonstrated in this document, if the Nashville metro area were to reduce by 50 percent the number of students who fail to graduate with their class, it could enjoy the following benefits: (1) Total additional wages in an average year: Nearly $28 million; (2) Percentage of new high school graduates who continue their education after high school: 35 percent; and (3) Total new homeowners: 1,800.