Of the 43 states analyzed, Utah's dropout rate for girls was lowest at 12 percent. The nonprofit center didn't include seven states and the District of Columbia because the data were not available from the U.S. Department of Education, according to the center.

"Utah has often led the nation in graduation rates in general, so in that respect I'm not surprised," state Superintendent of Education Patti Harrington said of the results. "But it's still unacceptably large."

The report follows a study released earlier this week by a Johns Hopkins University researcher that showed Utah is the only state in the nation without a "dropout factory," defined as a school where no more than 60 percent of students who start as freshmen make it through their senior year.

Jocelyn Samuels, vice president for education and employment for the Washington, D.C.-based center, said this latest report shows dropping out of school is not just a male problem.

"There has been significant attention paid to the dropout crisis, but it has been almost entirely as a problem that exists for boys," Samuels said. "One of the things our research demonstrates is this is not a boy crisis. This is a society crisis."

Nationwide, about one in four females will not graduate with a regular high school diploma after four years of high school, according to the report, which listed even worse rates for many minority students. About 37 percent of Hispanic females, 40 percent of black females and 50 percent of American Indian females didn't graduate with regular diplomas in four years in 2004.

And women who don't graduate with diplomas can face bleaker employment prospects than men who drop out.

In 2006, 77 percent of adult men who dropped out of school were employed, but only 53 percent of adult female dropouts could claim the same, the report said.

Women tend to drop out of school because of pregnancies, family responsibilities, attendance issues, academics and/or school discipline.

The report suggests states and schools try to keep more girls in school by improving data collection to better track the problem, providing more support for teen parents and more opportunities for girls to participate in academically rigorous career and technical training, as well as other things.