Kids who miss a lot of school from kindergarten to eighth grade may suffer unexpected costs as young adults, a new study finds. Researchers found that those who were more regularly absent in these early years of school were less likely to vote, reported having greater economic difficulties and had poorer educational outcomes when they were 22 to 23 years old. The results suggest early school absenteeism should be taken more seriously, said Arya Ansari, lead author of the study and assistant professor of human sciences at The Ohio State University. “There’s this misconception, especially among parents, that it doesn’t matter as much if kids miss school early on — that it only becomes important when they get to middle or high school,” said Ansari, who is also a researcher at Ohio State’s Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy. 
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