A person who leaves school or college before finishing, or the act of leaving an institution before completion.
Compound word from 'drop' (to fall, from Old Norse) and 'out' (exterior, from Old English). The term 'dropout' became common in the 1960s to describe students abandoning formal education.
The 1960s-70s 'dropout' culture was about rejecting the system, but today many successful entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are prestigious college dropouts—completely reversing the stigma in just 50 years!
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