Covid-19 and student learning in the United States: The hurt could last a lifetime

The economic impact of learning loss 
and dropping out
These effects—learning loss and higher dropout 
rates—are not likely to be temporary shocks easily 
erased in the next academic year. On the contrary, 
we believe that they may translate into long-term 
harm for individuals and society. 
Using the middle (virus resurgence) epidemiological 
scenario, in which large-scale in-class instruction 
does not resume until January 2021, we estimated 
the economic impact of the learning disruption. 
(The results would, of course, be worse in the third 
scenario and better in the first.) All told, we estimate 
that the average K–12 student in the United States 
These effects—learning loss and higher 
dropout rates—are not likely to be
temporary shocks easily erased in
the next academic year.
15
Research brief: Chronic absenteeism
, Utah Education Policy Center, University of Utah, 2012, uepc.utah.edu.
16
“Declining Enrollment, Shuttered Schools,” 
Education Week
, September 19, 2018, edweek.org; “Legacy of Katrina: The Impact of a Flawed
Recovery on Vulnerable Children of the Gulf Coast,” National Center for Disaster Preparedness, Children’s Health Fund, 2010. 
17
To create these estimates, we compared data on the effects on drop-out rates resulting from extended school absences, online-only
instruction (which can disrupt engagement and student–teacher relationships), and natural disasters. We focus on grades 9 to 11, as many
school districts have relaxed testing and other graduation requirements for current 12th-grade students.
18
Leah Lessard and Hannah Schacter, “Why the coronavirus crisis hits teenagers particularly hard: Developmental scientists explain,” 
Education
Week
, April 15, 2020, edweek.org.
19
During the 2008 recession, annual academic gains in US counties that suffered the largest shocks to employment fell 25 percent from
prerecession levels. These districts disproportionately served poor and black Americans. K. Shores, K and M. P. Steinberg, 
Schooling During
the Great Recession: Patterns of School Spending and Student Achievement Using Population Data
, 2019. 
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COVID-19 and student learning in the United States: The hurt could last a lifetime 

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could lose $61,000 to $82,000 in lifetime earnings 
(in constant 2020 dollars), or the equivalent of a year 
of full-time work, solely as a result of COVID-19–
related learning losses. These costs are significant—
and worse for black and Hispanic Americans.
While we estimate that white students would earn 
$1,348 a year less (a 1.6 percent reduction) over 
a 40-year working life, the figure is $2,186 a year 
(a 3.3 percent reduction) for black students and 
$1,809 (3.0 percent) for Hispanic ones. 
This translates into an estimated impact of $110 
billion annual earnings across the entire current 
K–12 cohort
20
(Exhibit 4). Of that sum, $98.8 
billion would be associated with loss of learning 
and the rest ($11.2 billion) with the increase in the 
number of high-school dropouts. This is not just an 
economic issue. Multiple studies have linked greater 
educational attainment to improved health, reduced 
crime and incarceration levels, and increased 
political participation.
The damage to individuals is consequential, but the 
consequences could go deeper: the United States 
as a whole could suffer measurable harm. With lower 
levels of learning and higher numbers of drop-outs, 
students affected by COVID-19 will probably be less 
skilled and therefore less productive than students 
from generations that did not experience a similar 
gap in learning.
21
Furthermore, if other countries 
20
Using projected learning loss onto the National Assessment of Education Progress and its relationship with the country’s GDP and earnings.
In addition, in all calculations below, we have accounted for the effects of an economic recession on academic outcomes.
Exhibit 4