Nearly a quarter of U.S. students were chronically absent from school last year in what researchers called an “ominous” trend for the education system.
In 2025, 22.6 percent of students missed 10 percent or more of the school year, the American Enterprise Institute found.
That’s down from a high of 28.3 percent in 2022, during the peak of the Covid pandemic, but chronic absenteeism remains above pre-pandemic levels — and gains in stopping it appear to be slowing with each passing year.
AEI called the trend “an ominous slowdown that should be met with urgent action, not ignominious acceptance.”
Chronic absenteeism can cause a host of problems.
“Missing school means missing valuable instructional time and poses serious implications for students' overall academic success and wellbeing,” according to the U.S. Department of Education. “Research suggests that children who are chronically absent for multiple years between preschool and second grade are much less likely to read at grade level by the third grade.”
Alaska, Washington, D.C., Oregon and New Mexico had the highest absenteeism rates, AEI found, while New Jersey, Virginia and Alabama had the lowest.
The phenomenon tends to be clustered in historically disadvantaged districts, the think tank notes.
In Illinois, for example, the general chronic absenteeism rate was about 25 percent last year, while 31 percent of low-income students were chronically absent and nearly 40 percent of Black students were.
Educators across the country have been trying different strategies to get students back to class.
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where 32 percent of students were chronically absent last year, an organization called A+ Schools has been reaching out directly to families, offering supplies and transportation as school gets back underway.
"Today is about bridging that gap, going and knocking on doors, letting folks know about what's available at the school to help them out," James Fogarty with A+ Schools told CBS Pittsburgh.
A related phenomenon known as school avoidance, where students refuse to attend class or struggle to remain in school for the full day, can also contribute to absences. School avoidance is pronounced among disabled students.
New York City recently settled a lawsuit accusing its public school system of failing to spot early warning signs of avoidance and thus denying disabled students a full education.
The school system now has a plan to put liaisons in every school building to monitor for challenges that keep students out of school, such as mental health struggles.
“Students whose disabilities make it difficult to attend school deserve individualized supports that address the root causes of their absences, not just the absences themselves,” Susan Horwitz, director of the Education Law Project at The Legal Aid Society, told K-12 Dive earlier this month about the policy. “The longer students experiencing school avoidance are out of school, the more difficult it becomes to help them return.”
