Why do some people think about jumping off buildings or hanging themselves, but never consider dropping out of school?

Because these students are gamblers. It's hard to understand with a child's mindset, but once you put yourself in the shoes of a gambler, it makes sense.
During my third year of high school, during break time, classmates would watch vlogs on the electronic whiteboard in the classroom to pass the time. Just then, the history teacher came in, and a comparison video of high school students from different countries was playing on the multimedia screen. There was an American high school student sweating profusely during a sports competition, a manga-style Japanese high school student running across a sandy beach with crashing waves, and a cool Korean high school student filming an outdoor travel video with particularly creative transitions. But before finishing the video, the teacher cut it off.
He sighed and said earnestly, "Study hard, don’t play around later. If you play, you won’t be better than others; if you study, you still won’t be better than others."
The lively, joking atmosphere in the class instantly froze, and even the most mischievous students stopped talking, gradually returning to their seats dejectedly. Looking back now, that was a mixture of fear and sadness. We were afraid of those sunk costs—costs that had become completely worthless.
What are those costs? Our time, the opportunities to develop other hobbies and skills, money, youth, laughter with friends, innocent love, moments with family, our freedom, and even our mental health. These are the youngest years of our lives.
But at that moment, we used all these things to exchange for high school exam scores, betting on the company offers after college graduation. We even subconsciously believed that our only path in life was studying; if we faltered, we would fall into an abyss.
Back then, teachers and parents didn’t tell us, "You need to work hard in school to become an ordinary taxpayer." Instead, they concealed 80% of the mediocre graduates, urging us to bet on the 20% of top students at the pinnacle. They cut our lives into two parts: those at the top of the tower and the yellow-haired kids.
Students haven’t entered society yet; they don’t understand the opportunities, policies, the importance of choices, industries, connections, markets, jobs, companies, or even labor laws. They are told they must work hard, do well on exams, and not miss a single class. Missing a class means their life's peak will fall further behind.
They place too much importance on this self-torture learning, betting everything on this narrow wooden bridge of life, like a progress bar in a game. In their understanding, dropping out of school means their life is completely ruined, hopeless—everything they once gambled for is lost, and the future is just a yellow-haired kid. If that’s the case, they might as well just die.
Do you know why children, teenagers in adolescence, are willing to endure high-pressure environments, endless exam drills, the "Zhang Water Prison" mode in Hengshui, and possibly collapsing family backgrounds? Because they have something called hope, and they tightly associate this hope with studying.
Although 70% of that hope, adults know, isn’t what they think it is.
But because they are young, the future—what hasn’t happened yet—is a mixed bag of good and bad. That’s the gambler’s mentality.
It’s very similar to the real estate industry. When housing prices soared, everyone took out loans worth millions to buy a house, making homeownership a must for marriage. When prices fell, those who were living in their homes, still paying off loans, and couldn’t sell their houses, some jumped off buildings, others comforted themselves that they were just living in their own homes, even though they were in pain.
Just like students now who haven’t figured out why they are studying. When the educational dividend disappears, these kids can comfort themselves that their relentless efforts weren’t for mundane things like salary, but to cultivate a refined literary taste. Is it worth paying such a high price for this kind of noble literary pursuit?
If it were truly just for self-cultivation and the pursuit of knowledge, students wouldn’t jump off buildings. Students jump because they are caught in a gambling game, and they are all-in with their own lives.