A Better Chicago Releases 2026 State of Our Youth Report

CHICAGO – A Better Chicago today released its second annual State of Our Youth report, examining the challenges and barriers youth currently face and offering recommendations for how Chicago can respond. The report draws on youth perspectives from surveys and focus groups conducted in Summer 2025, as well as publicly available data, to understand how Chicago’s young people are faring across key stages of development.

The findings highlight both the resilience of Chicago’s youth and the barriers they continue to face. Encouragingly, similar to last year, the vast majority (95%) of Chicago youth say they feel optimistic about their futures — a powerful reminder that young people still believe in what is possible. Yet, the report also demonstrates how longstanding inequities and under-resourced systems, compounded by the pandemic and ongoing social, economic and political pressures, continue to shape young people’s lives in uneven ways.

One of the most urgent insights from the report is the continued impact of chronic absenteeism on Chicago’s youth—more than 40% of CPS students missed more than 10% of the 2025 school year. This report further examines how absenteeism is impacted by and linked to broader social and economic factors, including poverty, community safety and belonging, mental health, academic progress, access to community-based programs and spaces, high school graduation, and college enrollment. 

“When students miss school, they don’t just miss out on learning, but also access to mental health supports, extracurricular opportunities, and the chance to build relationships with trusted adults and peers that help keep them connected and on-track,” said Beth Swanson, CEO of A Better Chicago. “Staying engaged in and connected at school remains one of the strongest predictors of long-term success and a pathway to a family-sustaining wage. Parents and community members, working in partnership with local school leaders and educators, can help create a system of support that enables students to be present in school and engaged in their learning.” 

Other key insights from the report include: 

• Youth identified anxiety or depression, boredom or dislike of school, bullying, drugs or alcohol, and stress as the top reasons they believe their peers miss school.
• Ninety-five percent of youth surveyed say mental health is a serious issue affecting their peers.
• Nearly one in four Chicago youth under age 18 lives in poverty. These students are two to three times more likely to be chronically absent and often face compounding challenges, including food insecurity and housing instability.
• Twenty-three percent of youth report that they witness violence in their community once per week.
• Young people participating in out-of-school programs report greater optimism about their futures and are more likely to pursue a four-year college degree after high school (65% vs. 37%).

 

“The challenges facing our youth are significant, but they are not insurmountable,” said Janice Jackson, a member of A Better Chicago’s Board of Directors and former CEO of Chicago Public Schools. “Chicago’s young people are ambitious and resilient, and they are clear about what they need: safe spaces, trusted adults, strong schools, and real pathways to opportunity.”

The report shares recommendations to better support youth across Chicago, including strengthening early warning systems to identify students at risk of chronic absenteeism, expanding access to school-based mental health services, increasing opportunities for mentorship and tutoring, and investing in safe community spaces and high-quality out-of-school programs. 

“Chicago is a city of extraordinary promise, and the trajectory of our city is inseparable from the future of its young people. Yet, opportunity remains out of reach for far too many youth, especially those in Black and Latinx communities on the South and West Sides,” said Steve Beard, Chair of A Better Chicago’s Board of Directors and CEO and Chairman of Covista. “That’s why A Better Chicago invests in partnerships that expand opportunity and keep youth connected to schools for long-term success.”

To advance this work, A Better Chicago recently launched Every Day Counts, an initiative committing at least $10 million over the next five years to help strengthen student attendance. This effort will focus on community-led solutions, developed alongside school leaders and educators, that will identify, test, and scale promising strategies in Chicago neighborhoods where absenteeism remains highest — including Austin, Englewood, Garfield Park, South Lawndale, South Shore, and Woodlawn. These investments will prioritize both early intervention for elementary students and additional support for high school students already struggling with attendance. A Better Chicago expects to announce its first round of Every Day Counts grant awards in June.

 

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About A Better Chicago

A Better Chicago is a venture philanthropy that invests in the most promising nonprofits providing opportunity for youth experiencing poverty. We’re a supercharger. We have deployed more than $50 million in unrestricted funding and management support to help the nonprofits in our portfolio grow. Our donors want to make pivotal, well-researched investments that lift the outlook for our city.