Lucy Flores’ brush with the law came at an early age. Her mother had left home when she was just 9 years old and her father, who only had a third-grade education, had to work several jobs to support Flores and her three siblings. The absence of Flores’ parents made it easier for her to gravitate toward an unsavory crowd.

“By the time I was 12, even though I had been in gifted and childhood education, the lack of support and role models and equity finally pushed me in the direction of gangs,” says Flores, a first-generation American whose parents migrated to the U.S. from Mexico.

She was arrested for theft repeatedly and placed on probation several times. Then following an incident when she stole a car and led police on a slow chase, she was convicted of grand theft auto and sent to a juvenile facility for nine months. She was not yet 15. She eventually dropped out of high school.

A report issued Thursday by the National Women’s Law Center and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund attempts to call attention to the high secondary school dropout rate of Latinas and the factors contributing to the dismal number. The study, which surveyed hundreds of high-school age Latinas throughout the country, cites statistics from the U.S. Department of Education. The data shows that 41 percent of Latinas do not complete high school in four years or drop out altogether.

“Latinas are the fastest growing group of female school-age youth,” says Lara Kaufmann, senior counsel for the National Women’s Law Center in Washington D.C.  “If Latinas continue to drop out at these rates, we will surely have a huge work force without education and that’s going to be a huge problem for this country.”

The study blames the high dropout rate on a variety of factors that include a need for many Latinos to work to help support their families as soon as they come of age. Latinas often have increased responsibilities at home like having to take care of their younger siblings, the study notes. For many, this means having to sacrifice their studies for domestic duties. A high teen pregnancy rate among Latinas also makes it difficult for many of these young women to continue with their education, the study said.