In 1975, the number of high school dropouts in a country was 5212 thousand. By 2003, this number had decreased to 3121 thousand. Find and interpret the average rate of change per year in the number of high school dropouts
Between 1975 and 2003, the number of high school dropouts decreased from 5212 thousand to 3121 thousand. We want to find the average rate of change per year in the number of dropouts. To do this, we calculate the change in the number of dropouts (3121 thousand - 5212 thousand = -2091 thousand) and divide it by the number of years (2003 - 1975 = 28 years). The average rate of change per year is approximately -74.68 thousand/year, which means that, on average, the number of high school dropouts decreased by around 74,680 per year during this time period.