AbstractRecent literature has raised concern over the increasing number of middle-class, high-achieving youth who are dropping out of school. Growing evidence suggests that these dropouts do not fit the profile of the traditional dropout and that their needs are not being adequately addressed by existing dropout programs. This paper reports a discriminant analysis of differential characteristics of a group of low-income, low-achieving and high-income, high-achieving dropouts who attended two different alternative school programs from 1987 to 1988. The data indicate that these dropouts can be differentiated on a number of psychosocial and family variables. Implications are discussed with reference to the need for alternative dropout programs to address the academic, social, and behavioral problems of these different types of dropouts.