Missing School, Missing Milestones: Do Early High School Absences Link to Lower Long-Term Educational Outcomes?

This study uses data from 2,933 youth from the Future Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the extent to which school absences at age 15 predict key educational milestones by the end of high school, including disciplinary infractions, academic performance and college readiness, and education status. We also considered whether these associations varied for health-related absences and days absent due to skipping. Results from covariate-adjusted regression models show that absences due to skipping were more strongly and negatively associated with all educational outcomes compared with health-related absences. Taken together, findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between types of absences when examining their role in students’ educational success, an area that remains critically underexplored in research.