the biggest thing in my cohort was the romanticised illusion of tafe. Many of the people in my year group through years 7-9 were planning to go to tafe in year 10, they all said things like "tafe will be so much better than school", "tafe will be so much more fun". Year 10 rolls around, they all dropped out and went to tafe, they hated it (unsurprisingly), and were enrolled back in school within a month. Now they're still here, dragging the whole cohort down.
There are less than 10 people in my year group who are actually getting an atar