Students drop out of school because of a variety of family, economic, and racial factors that can be categorized as either alienation, lack of motivation, or disadvantage. The key to reducing the dropout rate is helping youth to overcome their sense of disconnection. Students with low motivation to attend school have shown improvement in school attendance and retention after participating in career education. However, casual vocational exploration is not enough; major concentration in a vocational program is more helpful in student retention. The vocational experiences that are most closely related to reducing the dropout rate include the following: (1) more systematic and intense efforts to identify and help potential dropouts before or at entry into vocational programs; (2) program activities to enhance school climate and reduce absenteeism, class-cutting, and drug and alcohol abuse; (3) activities to enhance parents' support; (4) more career exploration prior to high school; (5) improvement of transitions through a vocational program to direct dropout-prone students to job-specific skill training courses; (6) linking work-study experiences with students' programs and objectives; (7) alignment of work-study programs to students' overall school plans and goals; and (8) activities to increase dropout-prone students' participation in vocational programs and to enhance linkages between these programs and other school experiences. Examples of successful programs are given. (KC)