In educational circles, there is an acronym for students who have had little schooling — SLIFE (students with limited or interrupted formal education) — but little data on how they do once they start going regularly, according to Chris Chang-Bacon, an assistant professor in the University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development. What data there is suggests such students have a high dropout rate. “We do find that their success is largely determined not by the students themselves but (by) how well the school is set up to receive them,” Chang-Bacon said.