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One of the policy successes of the 1980s was the striking increase in school retention rates from 35% of school students continuing to Year 12 at the start of the decade to 77% by 1992. However, this trend has since stalled and is now showing signs of a decline. It has become apparent that those young people leaving school early are at much greater risk of becoming trapped in marginal activity, finding no secure place in either learning or work. This study attempts to put a figure on these costs, estimating the lifetime costs to the country of a single-year cohort of early school-leavers (those early school-leavers from among one year of students going through school). The costs borne by the individual early school-leaver and those borne by government are identified separately. The study concludes: that Australia still has relatively low levels of secondary school completion; that half the estimated cost is monetary cost borne partly by the individual and partly by government; that the remaining half is a social cost which falls across the individual, government and the whole community. Both monetarily and socially, reducing the number of early school-leavers would be a very sound investment for the individuals concerned, for government, and for the country as a whole.