Statistics Snapshot: Generation Z and Education

This post explores sta­tis­tics at the inter­sec­tion of edu­ca­tion and Gen­er­a­tion Z and what the data tells us about this gen­er­a­tion of youth and young adults.

The term Gen­er­a­tion Z gen­er­al­ly refers to any indi­vid­ual born between 1997 and 2012. Span­ning ages 12 to 27 in 2024, the vast major­i­ty of Gen­er­a­tion Z mem­bers are cur­rent­ly advanc­ing through America’s mid­dle schools, high schools and colleges.

These youth and young adults are racial­ly and eth­ni­cal­ly diverse, pro­gres­sive and and pro-edu­ca­tion, accord­ing to mul­ti­ple sources. Often called Gen Z or​“zoomers,” they’re sand­wiched between mil­len­ni­als and a younger age group — still adding mem­bers today — called Gen­er­a­tion Alpha.

Gen­er­a­tion Z Edu­ca­tion Statistics

While Gen Z made its way through the school sys­tem over the last cou­ple decades, sev­er­al bell­wether edu­ca­tion indi­ca­tors improved, par­tic­u­lar­ly eighth grade math pro­fi­cien­cy and high school grad­u­a­tion rates. How­ev­er, chron­ic absen­teeism became an increas­ing con­cern, and scores for the youngest Gen Zers — cur­rent­ly in mid­dle school — have yet to recov­er from pan­dem­ic edu­ca­tion disruptions.

Read­ing, Math and Chron­ic Absenteeism 

• Gen Z fourth graders made slight progress on read­ing pro­fi­cien­cy. Zoomers moved through fourth grade from about 2006 to 2021. Aca­d­e­m­ic data are avail­able for almost all of that time — from 2007 to 2019 — on the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT^® Data Cen­ter. Dur­ing that peri­od, the share of fourth graders scor­ing pro­fi­cient or bet­ter in read­ing inched up from 32% to 34%.
• At the same time, chron­ic absen­teeism increased for Gen Z fourth graders. From 2007 to 2019, the per­cent­age of fourth graders who were chron­i­cal­ly absent from school for any rea­son rose from 20% to 24%. This sta­tis­tic jumped to a stag­ger­ing 36% by 2022, when the next gen­er­a­tion, Gen Alpha, began enter­ing fourth grade. Some research has linked absen­teeism to ris­ing youth men­tal health prob­lems. For exam­ple, a 2023 Gallup sur­vey found that ​“Gen Z stu­dents with fair or poor men­tal health were 59% more like­ly to say they have missed school in the past month than those with excel­lent men­tal health.”
• When the old­est Gen Zers reached eighth grade around 2011, the share scor­ing pro­fi­cient in math hit its high­est lev­el since 2000: 34%. That is, the per­cent­age of U.S. eighth grade stu­dents scor­ing pro­fi­cient or bet­ter in math increased to a high of 34% in 2011, up from 25% for eight grade mil­len­ni­als in 2000. This fig­ure remained fair­ly steady between 2011 and 2019 but then plunged to 26% in 2022, reflect­ing the pandemic’s toll on math scores.

High School and Col­lege Attain­ment for Gen­er­a­tion Z

Gen Zers are climb­ing a longer aca­d­e­m­ic lad­der. They are more like­ly to fin­ish high school and pur­sue col­lege com­pared to ear­li­er gen­er­a­tions. For exam­ple, the first Gen Zers reached age 18 in 2015, and the nation­al col­lege com­ple­tion rate for this 2015 cohort has remained high­er — at 62% — than the rates for all pri­or stu­dent cohorts, accord­ing to the 2023 Com­plet­ing Col­lege report by the Nation­al Stu­dent Clear­ing­house. How­ev­er, the rate has stag­nat­ed at this lev­el for three years in a row.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter reports more edu­ca­tion trends:

• Gen Z high school­ers achieved a record-high U.S. grad­u­a­tion rate: 87% in 2021–2022. When the old­est zoomers reached high school grad­u­a­tion age, 82% grad­u­at­ed on time in 2013–2014. For Gen Z stu­dents, 87% hit this same mile­stone in 2021–2022, which is a his­toric high for the nation. Grad­u­a­tion rates also improved for all racial and eth­nic groups dur­ing this peri­od, although stu­dents of col­or con­tin­ue to expe­ri­ence inequities in edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties that influ­ence grad­u­a­tion rates. For instance, just 74% of Amer­i­can Indi­an or Alas­ka Native, 81% of Black, and 83% of Lati­no Gen Z stu­dents grad­u­at­ed on time in 2021–2022, com­pared to 90% for white students.
• When Gen Zers reached ages 16 to 19 by 2023, only 4% of these teens were out of school and lacked a high school degree. From 2016 to 2022, the per­cent­age of youth in this age group who fit this sta­tis­tic remained at 4%, which is well below the equiv­a­lent sta­tis­tic for mil­len­ni­als in the ear­ly 2000s.
• Almost all Gen Zers, ages 18 to 24, are high school grad­u­ates or cur­rent­ly enrolled in school. The major­i­ty of this gen­er­a­tion (94%) are enrolled stu­dents or have a high school degree, accord­ing to 2018–2022 data. In addi­tion, the share of Gen Z young adults who were col­lege stu­dents or col­lege graduates has held steady at just under 50% since the first mem­bers of this gen­er­a­tion reached age 18. This fig­ure is a marked improve­ment from 36% in 2000.

Addi­tion­al­ly, high­er lev­els of post-sec­ondary edu­ca­tion are asso­ci­at­ed with increased reports from Gen Z that they are thriv­ing (based on self-assess­ments of their cur­rent and pro­ject­ed lives), accord­ing to a 2024 Gallup sur­vey. The sur­vey found that among adults ages 21 to 27, more than half (52%) of those who were pur­su­ing or had com­plet­ed a bachelor’s degree said they were thriv­ing. This sta­tis­tic dropped to 41% among those who were enrolled in or had com­plet­ed an asso­ciate degree, cer­tifi­cate or tech­ni­cal train­ing pro­gram. It fur­ther dropped to just 35% among those with a high school degree or less

Read more about high school grad­u­a­tion dis­par­i­ties and trends

Parental Edu­ca­tion Lev­els of Gen­er­a­tion Z

The tra­jec­to­ry toward more edu­ca­tion holds true at the fam­i­ly lev­el, too. Par­ents of Gen Zers are also bet­ter edu­cat­ed. As zoomers grew up over the last two decades, the share of chil­dren under age 18 whose head of house­hold had a bachelor’s degree increased from 17% in 2005 to 22% in 2022. Sim­i­lar­ly, kids whose par­ents had grad­u­ate degrees increased by 6 per­cent­age points dur­ing this period.

In addi­tion, a declin­ing share of Gen Zers was born to moth­ers with less than a high school diplo­ma. Among the youngest mem­bers of this group born between 2006 and 2012, births to women who had not grad­u­at­ed from high school dropped from 26% to 17%. This is sig­nif­i­cant because low edu­ca­tion­al attain­ment among moth­ers is linked to poor child health and aca­d­e­m­ic outcomes.

The Edu­ca­tion of Gen Zers in Immi­grant Families

Mem­bers of Gen­er­a­tion Z who come from immi­grant fam­i­lies are less like­ly to expe­ri­ence lan­guage bar­ri­ers. Between 2000 and 2002, 22% of mil­len­ni­al school-age kids in immi­grant fam­i­lies report­ed not speak­ing Eng­lish ​“very well.” By 2017, when Gen Zers reached ages 5 to 20, just 14% of kids in immi­grant fam­i­lies fit this same statistic.

Improv­ing a student’s Eng­lish lan­guage pro­fi­cien­cy cor­re­lates to improved aca­d­e­m­ic out­comes, accord­ing to research. For instance, over 90% of Gen Z fourth graders who were Eng­lish lan­guage learn­ers scored below pro­fi­cient in read­ing from 2007 to 2019. By com­par­i­son, only 62% to 66% of their Eng­lish-flu­ent peers scored below pro­fi­cient dur­ing this peri­od. Nation­wide, an over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of chil­dren who are in Eng­lish Lan­guage Learn­er pro­grams — three of every four kids who receive this sup­port — speak Span­ish as their home lan­guage, accord­ing to the Nation­al Cen­ter for Edu­ca­tion Statistics.

Gen Z Views on Education 

A nation­al sur­vey of Gen Z by Gallup and the Wal­ton Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion gath­ered the per­spec­tives of young peo­ple ages 12 to 27 on a range of issues, includ­ing edu­ca­tion, dur­ing 2023 and 2024. Among the survey’s findings

• Gen­er­a­tion Z thinks col­lege is impor­tant: More than 8 in 10 (83%) Gen Zers think a col­lege degree is ​“very impor­tant” or ​“fair­ly impor­tant.” This is in stark con­trast to the wan­ing con­fi­dence in high­er edu­ca­tion among U.S. adults over­all, which fell from 57% hav­ing ​“a great deal” or ​“quite a lot” of con­fi­dence in 2015 to just 36% in 2023, accord­ing to Gallup.
• Most want to go to col­lege but many expect they can­not afford it:  A major­i­ty (57%) of Gen Z mid­dle and high school­ers intend to pur­sue a bachelor’s or asso­ciate degree. How­ev­er, just 53% of col­lege-bound Gen Zers think they can afford it. While con­cerns about col­lege afford­abil­i­ty are con­sis­tent across all demo­graph­ic groups, Black Gen Zers are the least like­ly to think they can afford it (39%).
• Few feel pre­pared for col­lege: Only about 1 in 4 Gen Z high school­ers feel very pre­pared to apply for or suc­ceed in col­lege. Gen Z stu­dents who are more engaged in school are more like­ly to have a pos­i­tive out­look for their future.
• School engage­ment large­ly declined in 2024: In this sur­vey, school engage­ment includ­ed mea­sures such as stu­dents ​“feel­ing like what they are learn­ing in the class­room is inter­est­ing, chal­leng­ing and allows them to lever­age their nat­ur­al tal­ents.” Most mea­sures of Gen Z school engage­ment declined between 2023 and 2024, and only 49% of mid­dle and high school stu­dents say their course­work chal­lenges them in a good way. School engage­ment is strong­ly linked to stu­dent hopes to pur­sue college.
• How­ev­er, most Gen Zers still have con­fi­dence in teach­ers: In pro-edu­ca­tion views, Gen Zers place more trust in teach­ers – with 63% express­ing a lot of con­fi­dence in them – and in sci­ence (71%) than they do in the med­ical sys­tem (45%), the police (38%), the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem (23%), large tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies (17%) or the news (16%).

Gen Z and Technology

Gen­er­a­tion Z babies were born into mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy and they are the first gen­er­a­tion to grow up immersed in it. Dubbed ​“the glob­al gen­er­a­tion” these stu­dents have been able to access —instant­ly — peers, trends and news from all over the world. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, 95% of 13- to 17-year-olds report­ed hav­ing access to a smart­phone, accord­ing to a 2022 Pew Research Cen­ter sur­vey.

The same sur­vey found that although smart­phone access did not dif­fer great­ly for low­er- and high­er-income house­holds, low-income teens were less like­ly to have com­put­ers. Near­ly all (94%) teens in house­holds earn­ing over $75,000 a year had access to com­put­ers, com­pared to 79% of teens from low-income house­holds mak­ing less than $30,000 a year. Access to com­put­ers and lap­tops at home, along with high-speed inter­net, is increas­ing­ly essen­tial for aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess, as well as employ­ment, health care and oth­er impor­tant needs.

The sur­vey also found that more than one in three (35%) teens report­ed using social media ​“almost con­stant­ly.” While tech­nol­o­gy and social media can fos­ter impor­tant social sup­port and con­nec­tions, they can also aug­ment anx­i­ety, depres­sion, poor sleep and stress. Con­tribut­ing to this, it can fuel a steady drum­beat of neg­a­tive news sto­ries and increase the risk of online harass­ment. These poten­tial issues can impact aca­d­e­m­ic success. 

Read more about Gen­er­a­tion Z and men­tal health

Gen­er­a­tion Z in the Workforce

Gen­er­a­tion Z teens (15- to 17-year-olds) are less like­ly to be employed rel­a­tive to their same-age coun­ter­parts in ear­li­er gen­er­a­tions, accord­ing to the Pew Research Cen­ter. One pos­si­ble rea­son? Their pri­or­i­ty is school. Nation­wide, 41% of Gen­er­a­tion X teens were work­ing in 1986 and 27% of mil­len­ni­al teens were work­ing in 2002. This rate con­tin­ued to fall — land­ing at just 18% of Gen­er­a­tion Z teens work­ing in 2018.

At the same time, employ­ment has increased sub­stan­tial­ly in recent years for the old­est mem­bers of Gen Z, from just over half (55%) of young adults ages 18 to 24 report­ing employ­ment between Jan. 6 and Feb. 1, 2021, to more than two-thirds (68%) between Oct. 5 and Nov. 14, 2022.

Addi­tion­al work­force-relat­ed statistics:

• Gen Z is less like­ly to be dis­con­nect­ed from both work and school: Few­er zoomers ages 16 to 24 are dis­con­nect­ed from work and school com­pared to mil­len­ni­als of the same age a decade ago, accord­ing to the KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter. That is, 11% of Gen Z youth and young adults (about 4.3 mil­lion) were not work­ing or in school in 2022, an improve­ment from 14% (or 5.6 mil­lion) for mil­len­ni­als in 2012. How­ev­er, the 2022 fig­ure still rep­re­sents more than 4 mil­lion mem­bers of Gen Z who are detached from work and edu­ca­tion and need sup­port re-engag­ing in these settings.
• They pri­or­i­tize earn­ing enough to be com­fort­able over high-sta­tus jobs: About 8 in 10 (79%) Gen Zers say it is very impor­tant that they earn enough to live com­fort­ably, when asked about what’s impor­tant for their future and hav­ing a great life, accord­ing to the 2024 Gallup study not­ed above. Oth­er career aspi­ra­tions were less impor­tant, such as hav­ing their dream job (43%) or a high-sta­tus work posi­tion (17%).
• They indi­cate that career-prepa­ra­tion at schools is lack­ing: The same study found that most Gen Z mid­dle and high school­ers say their schools do not pro­vide career-prepa­ra­tion activ­i­ties. For instance, only about 1 in 3 Gen Z stu­dents said their school offered oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn how to apply (33%) or inter­view (30%) for a job. 

Learn More About Gen Z

Check out the KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter for the lat­est sta­tis­tics relat­ed to Gen Z, includ­ing a new dataset on youth and young adults ages 14–24, which cap­tures the major­i­ty of this gen­er­a­tion. Also, see these resources:

• Gen­er­a­tion Z and Men­tal Health
• Core Char­ac­ter­is­tics of Gen­er­a­tion Z
• Social Issues Impor­tant to Gen­er­a­tion Z
• What the Sta­tis­tics Say About Gen­er­a­tion Z
• What Is Gen­er­a­tion Alpha?

KIDS COUNT Adds New Dataset on Youth and Young Adults

• Gen Z pop­u­la­tion size, by race and ethnicity
• Gen Zers liv­ing in pover­ty com­pared to oth­er generations 
• Gen Zers in pover­ty by race and ethnicity
• Gen Zers liv­ing in low-income house­holds
• Gen Zers in low-income house­holds by race and ethnicity

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