The majority of students in the U.S. will graduate with a high school diploma. The same cannot be said for some students around the world. Access to public schools is one explanation for the educational gap between students in rich and poor countries, but a new study shows other factors are more significant.

Juan Carlos Cordoba, an associate professor of economics at Iowa State University, and a colleague at the University of Pittsburgh examined the differences in educational achievement for a study published in the Journal of Monetary Economics. What they found was that students are more likely to drop out of school in countries with higher fertility and mortality rates.

Read the full ISU News Service article by Angie Hunt at: http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2013/02/04/educationeconomics