Differences in education and labor market outcomes across groups completing high school at different ages and by different means (e.g., by graduation as compared with receiving a general education development diploma) may be due to a variety of factors, including all those that influence a person to leave school early. For an early school-leaver, an estimate of the value of completing high school is the difference between outcomes of those who have either passed the General Education Development (GED) examination or gone back to school and those who have not completed high school. By 1990, young adults with a GED were more likely to have attended either a third or fourth year of high school than other dropouts. For both males and females, those who did not attain a high school diploma before age 20 did not do as well as a group in the labor market as those who did. Females who took advantage of a second chance to complete high school usually had higher annual earnings than those who did not, and those who received a diploma or GED before age 20 were more likely to be employed. Two tables and three graphs illustrate these findings and trends in employment. (SLD)