Private, Public & Charter School's K-12

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The Corporation Stealing Your Kid’s Lunch Money

By Katya Schwenk

Last fall, Emily Krieger, a mother in Bozeman, Montana, began to wonder about the unending fees she was paying to provide her two children lunch money at their local public school.

A cafeteria lunch at Emily Dickinson Elementary School, where Krieger’s children attend, costs $2.25, plus $1 for a carton of milk. Yet last year, the cost of loading money onto students’ meal accounts — which are managed by a website called MySchoolBucks — increased to $3.25 per transaction. The fee had grown larger than the cost of an entire meal.

“It caught my attention,” Krieger told The Lever. On the MySchoolBucks website, the $3.25 charge was called a “program fee.” But that money, Krieger learned, wasn’t going toward her children’s school. 

Instead, the fees were going to one of the largest payment processing companies in the world — one that has been fighting a years-long legal battle to protect the millions it makes upcharging parents on lunch money. Now, that operation is facing new scrutiny from the courts and federal regulators. 

At the same time, efforts are ramping up to provide universal free school lunches, which Minnesota adopted last year under the governorship of Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz. But the school-lunch tycoons — and their powerful legal and lobbying teams — won’t be relinquishing their lunch-money millions without a fight.

MySchoolBucks, a subsidiary of financial behemoth Global Payments, is the largest of three payment processors that dominate an increasingly lucrative K-12 payments market, mediating millions of dollars in payments from students and their parents for everything from school lunches to athletic events. As the company has increasingly cornered the market, it has drawn attention from consumer-rights lawyers and federal regulators — and is now at the center of a growing battle over school-lunch junk fees.

“They’re making billions off a very large service fee,” Krieger said — on the backs of her own family and families around the country, as students head back to school. “It’s like, yikes, is this the best or only option? Is this what most schools are using?”

The company and its competitors are raking in more than $100 million a year from fees on lunch money alone, according to a July report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal consumer watchdog. The fees are particularly burdensome on low-income families, who often can’t afford to load a large lump sum of money onto a student’s meal account and therefore pay more frequent flat transaction fees. Regulators found that vulnerable families may pay as much as $0.60 in fees for every $1 they spend on lunch.

“They designed a system to nickel and dime hundreds of thousands of people once every other week,” said Adam Rust, the director of financial services at the consumer advocacy group Consumer Federation of America, calling the fees “a hidden cost of just living.”

Yet while MySchoolBucks has signed more and more contracts each year, making it a central growth driver for Global Payments, challenges to its business practices are brewing. A consumer fraud lawsuit, which was brought in 2019 against the company, may soon be certified as a class-action suit, which could allow attorneys to pursue settlements on behalf of many more families, according to new court records reviewed by The Lever. The CFPB’s recent report on the market, which documented the companies’ disproportionate burden on poor families, could represent a prelude to further enforcement.

Any attempts at reform, however, will come up against a company with annual revenues of more than $9 billion, and which spends hundreds of thousands of dollars a year lobbying lawmakers in Washington.

“There is every incentive in the world for [Global Payments] to throw everything they’ve got at us, as long as they possibly can, until a court makes them pay back parents,” said Janet Varnell, one of the lead attorneys on the ongoing lawsuit against MySchoolBucks, and the president of Public Justice, a pro-worker and pro-consumer legal advocacy group.

“This is the first case of its kind,” she added. “No one has successfully sued a K-12 payment processor company for this type of fraud.”

Global Payments did not return a request for comment.

Fees “Way Above Industry Standards”

In 2010 and 2011, a company called Heartland Payment Systems went on a shopping spree, rapidly acquiring nascent school payments companies, including MySchoolBucks.com, a startup website that parents could use to pay for school lunches. At the time, Heartland was the fifth-largest payments processor in the country after just over a decade in business, thanks in part to an early injection of private equity cash. It saw promise in the new push for cashless school transactions, which were growing in popularity among parents.

In 2016, another deal further drove school lunches into the grip of corporate America. That December, Global Payments announced a $4.3 billion deal to acquire Heartland Payment Systems, with executives promising the sale would be “transformative” for the industry.

Heartland’s “school solutions” are now a prized asset for Global Payments, helping drive “double-digit growth” in one of the company’s divisions, executives told investors on an earnings call last year. 

The company is by far the biggest player in the market, which is largely controlled by three companies. The others are SchoolCafé, which is owned by Cybersoft Technologies, and LINQ Connect. Regulators estimate that MySchoolBucks has captured nearly 40 percent of the market, with SchoolCafé and LINQ holding 17 percent and 12 percent, respectively. 

MySchoolBucks also charges the highest fees. The company’s average transaction fee is $2.55, according to federal regulators, the highest on the market. But in Bozeman and elsewhere, the company is increasingly raising fees to over $3. Families have no choice but to pay up.

While those fees may seem small at first glance, they add up: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s conservative estimate was that families pay $42 per school year on average. For families with more children, or who add money to their accounts more frequently, that total may be far higher. And it’s worth noting that a $3.25 transaction fee on a deposit of $20 or even $50 (16 and 6 percent of the total transaction) is far higher than, say, credit or debit card transaction fees, which are usually between 1 and 2 percent of a given purchase.

“[The fees] are way above industry standards,” said Varnell. “The amount they are charging to parents for school lunch is several times more than whatever they’d be charged in virtually any other part of the market.”

But lured by the promise of cashless convenience for families and back-end services for administrators, schools are increasingly signing up for MySchoolBucks. The company says that more than 30,000 schools and two million families now use its technology, and Global Payments executives told investors in August that the platform had secured a contract with the Los Angeles Unified School District, which meant that “we now have partnerships with the three largest school districts in the United States.”

Schools, however, may not always consider the fees that families are charged when negotiating these contracts. Indeed, the fact that the companies’ customers — school districts — are not factoring fees into their decision-making has arguably become a pillar of MySchoolBucks’ business model. Districts might choose MySchoolBucks for its point-of-sale technology for cafeterias and school stores, for instance, without considering that these programs then automatically integrate sky-high fees for families. Or districts might not realize they can push the company to lower the fees in contract negotiations.

This arrangement has created a captive market, critics charge — one consisting of parents and families who have no choice about what payment platform their schools use.

“This is an example of corporate monopoly power. They exert a certain price — really, any price that they want — and the parents are at the corporations’ mercy to pay that price,” said Christine Chen Zinner, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform, a pro-consumer advocacy group. “They have no choices.”

“Stealing Their Money”

This is what Varnell, the attorney, realized when years ago she was contacted by Max Story, an attorney and father in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, whose two children attended public schools in Duval County.

Story, himself a consumer-protection attorney, had begun wondering where the program fees that MySchoolBucks charged him each time he put money on either of his children’s meal accounts were going. In court documents, he testified that he was led to believe that this money was going to the Duval County schools. It wasn’t.

“I could immediately see that there was nothing stopping this private corporation from just raising the fees,” Varnell said. 

In 2019, Story filed suit against MySchoolBucks, alleging that he was misled about the destination of the fees, which he claimed amounted to consumer fraud, and that the transactions violated credit card laws. At the center of the case is alleged deception by MySchoolBucks, which attorneys claim was trying to hide the fact that its fees were going straight to its own corporate coffers.

“Parents behave differently when they think that the money is going to their child’s school than when they think the largest payment processor in the world is stealing their money,” Varnell explained. 

Global Payments has been fighting hard to keep it that way. As Varnell and Story got to work on the case, the company began to go to extreme lengths to stop them.

Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, with Story as a plaintiff, MySchoolBucks deposited $40,000 into Story’s bank account in an attempt to nullify his claim, as the company explained in court documents at the time. Story was undeterred. He refused the money and reversed the deposit, in order to keep the case in court.

MySchoolBucks then rolled out a new “terms of service” agreement to all users, requiring them to waive their rights to participate in a class-action lawsuit against the company in order to continue using the platform. To avoid signing it, Story went to “tremendous lengths,” he testified in court documents, to work out an alternative way to pay for his children’s school lunch.

That terms of service — which, five years later, parents are still required to sign to pay for their child’s lunches — explicitly mentions the Story v. Heartland Payment Systems case: “If you accept these terms of service… you will not [be] permitted to participate in the Story case as a class member,” it says.

“They are still, to this day, saying they can enforce that,” Varnell said of the terms of service.

That may soon change. At a hearing on July 17, the federal judge presiding over the proceedings told attorneys for both sides that he was leaning toward certifying the case as a class-action lawsuit — a major victory for the plaintiffs, who could then pursue claims in the case on behalf of MySchoolBucks users around the country.

“My inclination is to say yes to some class certification in this case,” said U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan, according to a transcript of the hearing, which The Lever obtained. Corrigan emphasized, though, that he had not yet ruled on the issue. “I do think there’s been some indication in the discovery that Heartland internally knew there were some problems here.” 

Before moving forward, Corrigan sent both parties to settlement talks, which are expected to last the next several months. In the meantime, the lawsuit is not the only threat Global Payments is currently facing.

Cracking Down

The first sign that regulators were considering taking on the growing K-12 payments industry emerged last fall, when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a report on junk fees. In a brief section in that report, regulators noted that they had warned some unnamed K-12 payments companies of practices that “may not comply with consumer financial protection laws.”

Regulators followed this notice with another report in July — the first in-depth study of the companies that make money from school lunch fees. The report found that the fees were “burdensome” and they had a disproportionate impact on low-income families.

Zinner, the attorney with Americans for Financial Reform, said the report was a sign that regulators were working to hold the companies to account. “I think the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] has the right idea,” she said. “They’re doing everything that they can to make sure these payment processing companies are in full compliance with the law.”

School lunch programs — whether students are paying full price or qualify for free or reduced-price lunches — are not supposed to charge additional fees, beyond the cost of a meal. As regulators highlighted, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees school lunch programs, has long had this as a policy: Students “shall not be charged any additional fees” for lunch.

Whether the practices of MySchoolBucks and other K-12 payment companies are running afoul of this policy is a key focus of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report. As schools increasingly turn to digital payment options, parents might not realize they have any alternative ways to pay, even if they exist.

The fees have persisted even as schools in some states have started implementing free lunches for all, as in Minnesota, which recently launched a universal free breakfast and lunch program. But the new guarantee of free lunch has not driven MySchoolBucks out of the state. Some schools still use the platform to allow students to pay for milk or additional food at lunch — preserving the platform’s fees.

“Families may be paying fees for electronic payments without knowing that they are entitled to fee-free options,” regulators found, saying that it believed payment processors were violating consumer protection laws if they did not make it clear that fee-free alternatives were available to families.

In Bozeman, Krieger said that she was unaware of other ways to pay for school lunch at her children’s district: “[There wasn’t] one that was obvious to me,” she said. 

A representative from the Bozeman School District wrote in an email to The Lever that “Parents can also send cash or check to the school for lunch deposits, and many take advantage of that option.”

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Southlake's school politics

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Southlake's Carroll ISD is fighting with the Biden administration again — and the district's LGBTQ+ students are caught in the middle. Why it matters: The affluent Tarrant County district has been at the center of school culture wars for years, clashing with Democratic administrations over policies around gender identity, race, books and Title IX. State of play: Current and former Southlake parents say they're concerned the district could be creating a hostile environment for LBGTQ+ students, per a new Texas Monthly story. "Southlake has this martyr complex, and they want to be the one perceived as battling against this woke Department of Education," former Southlake parent Pam Francis, whose daughter is queer, told the magazine. One student said she has toned down her queerness while in school, avoiding public displays of affection with her girlfriend and obscuring details in class assignments to not give away her orientation. "It's just easier when you're not openly queer in this district," she told Texas Monthly. The other side: District officials didn't respond to a request for comment. Context: Carroll ISD teachers don't have to use students' preferred pronouns, and students must use bathrooms and locker rooms aligned with their gender assigned at birth. The district was the first in 30 years to leave the Texas Association of School Boards last year, saying it opposed the association's diversity and inclusion policies, per Texas Monthly. The Department of Education determined in May that the district violated students' civil rights in four cases tied to sexual orientation and race. Shortly after, the district sued the Department of Education over its plan to boost Title X protections for LGBTQ+ students. Between the lines: A conservative Christian group representing the district pro bono in the Title IX lawsuit was also part of the case that overturned Roe v. Wade. What's next: The Carroll ISD lawsuit against the Title IX changes could go to federal trial in the coming months, per Texas Monthly.

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📚 Segregated school now a historic site in West Texas

By Russell Contreras

The Blackwell School opened in 1909 for Mexican American students. Photo: National Parks Conservation Association

If you're planning to visit Marfa, there's a new historical marker for you to check out. A former segregated school for Mexican American students in the West Texas town is now a national historic site. Why it matters: The Blackwell School in Marfa is only the second national historic site in the country dedicated to modern Latino history and explores a chapter of our American story that many people don't know about, says Kyle Groetzinger of the National Parks Conservation Association. Catch up quick: President Joe Biden signed the Blackwell School National Historic Site Act in 2022, but the government was waiting for a land transfer to formally take over two of the school's buildings. The transfer was completed this summer. Flashback: The adobe building opened in 1909 and served Mexican American students who were barred from attending the town's white-only school. Former students later recalled the emotional abuse and discrimination they suffered at the Blackwell School. The school shut down in 1965, and many of its buildings were razed. Memorabilia and panels

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🚭 Youth vaping hits 10-year low

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Youth vaping is down by almost 25% over the past year, the CDC and FDA said today. Roughly 8% of high school students and 6% of middle school students said they regularly use e-cigarettes — the lowest rates in a decade. 💨 Between the lines: 88% of teens who vape said they use flavored products — mainly fruit, candy and mint flavors. The FDA has led an aggressive crackdown on flavored vapes, beginning in the Trump administration. Critics argue that flavors appeal to teens, not adult smokers who might benefit from replacing cigarettes with vaping. Go deeper.

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Rethinking phone bans

Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios

The school shooting last week in Winder, Georgia, is a reminder of why some parents oppose efforts to ban cellphones in the classroom. Students in the school were texting or calling their parents what they thought might have been their last chance to say "I love you." In previous school shootings, students used their cellphones to call for help, reach out to their parents and document what was happening. 📵 But there's been a broad and bipartisan push lately to ban phones from schools on the grounds that they're a distraction in normal, non-emergency settings, AP reports. "I'd hate to see another school shooting be the reason that we bring TVs into the classroom and then disrupt our children's education," California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday. "Because, in essence, that's what a cellphone is equivalent to — bringing a TV into the classroom and disrupting the ability to get quality academic time." Go deeper.

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US consumer watchdog finds that school lunch fees are taking a toll on parents

NEW YORK (AP) — Single mother Rebecca Wood, 45, was already dealing with high medical bills in 2020 when she noticed she was being charged a $2.49 “program fee” each time she loaded money onto her daughter’s school lunch account.

https://apnews.com/article/back-to-school-lunch-junk-fees-1e4a0567c3e51ed210e2a475c496a85b?

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Georgia’s Top GOP Lawmaker Seeks Tougher Action Against Students Who Make Threats. But It May Not Make Schools Safer.

A year ago, sheriff’s deputies in Georgia showed up on the doorstep of middle school student Colt Gray. They were there to question him about an online threat to shoot up his school. Last week, the 14-year-old was charged with shooting and killing four people at Apalachee High School.

https://www.propublica.org/article/apalachee-high-school-shooting-threats-response?

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Not-so-great expectations: Students are reading fewer books in English class

Chris Stanislawski didn’t read much in his middle school English classes, but it never felt necessary. Students were given detailed chapter summaries for every novel they discussed, and teachers played audio of the books during class.

https://apnews.com/article/books-reading-high-school-english-class-c8d9f39773268a6e8c79cb0b3c78d3c1?

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School safety

 

A gradual reopening of Apalachee High School, the scene of this year's deadliest school shooting, is scheduled to begin today. Areas of the campus in Winder, Georgia, will remain closed for the rest of the school year after two students and two teachers were killed in the September 4 attack. Authorities have added new layers of security but concerned parents, students and community members have launched a petition saying students and teachers deserve additional safety measures before they return — like clear bag policies and metal detectors. In a few other states, lawmakers have approved legislation requiring or encouraging silent panic alarm systems in schools that allow staff to report an emergency with a few clicks on their phones.

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School threats rise nationwide

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Schools across the U.S. have been hit by a spate of false threats of violence in recent weeks, forcing them to evacuate or temporarily close, Axios' April Rubin reports. In a single afternoon last week, schools in Tennessee, South Carolina, Minnesota, Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Texas, Michigan and Maryland all received threats. In Volusia County, Fla., the sheriff's office received 54 tips about potential threats in a single night this month. All the threats turned out to be false. In Springfield, Ohio, schools closed over hoax bomb threats following the GOP presidential ticket's amplification of a debunked conspiracy theory that immigrants in the city were eating pets. 📚 Why it matters: Threats of bombs, shooters and other dangers disrupt learning and stir communitywide anxiety about school safety. They also often spur copycat threats. A single threat can cost between $25,000 and $40,000 to investigate. "Not taking it seriously even one time and it turns out to be truly a bomb, that's just not going to be satisfactory to the community," said Lauren Shapiro, an associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Go deeper.

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Vision problems

More than a third of children around the world were nearsighted in 2023, and that percentage is expected to keep rising, according to new research. This is what parents can do to help protect their children’s vision.

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📱 School cellphone bans spread

Data: KFF. Map: Alex Fitzpatrick/Axios More than half of U.S. states have taken steps to ban or restrict cellphone use in K-12 schools, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick writes from a recent KFF analysis. Why it matters: Even some students admit that their phones can be hugely disruptive during class, and cyberbullying is a persistent issue — but many parents see phones as critical safety tools in the event of a shooting or other emergency. Driving the news: Seven states, including Florida, Louisiana and Virginia, have banned or restricted school cellphone use. State education departments have issued policy proposals or launched pilot programs in another six. Legislation restricting or banning cellphone use in schools has been introduced in 14 others. How it works: In some schools, students are expected to put their devices in a secure pouch they can unlock when leaving for the day, or during an emergency. Go deeper.

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Food dye ban

 

Six chemicals used in many popular food and drink products were banned from California public schools this week. The new law makes the Golden State the first in the country to forbid the use of red dye No. 40 and other common dyes in K-12 public school meals. Some of these dyes are found in some, but not all, products under the Cheetos, Doritos, Skittles, M&Ms, Starburst, Gatorade, Mountain Dew, Cap'n Crunch, Ruffles and Takis brands. The bill stems from concerns these dyes would harm children's ability to learn, as some studies show they have been linked to behavioral difficulties and decreased attention among children. If you're concerned about the potential impacts of these dyes, experts recommend avoiding ultra-processed foods and opting for alternatives like fresh produce — foods that are USDA-certified organic, for example, can't contain artificial food dye.

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‘The Limitation Effect’: NYU study examines effect of censorship in schools

Florida education policies targeting classroom discussion and materials related to sexual orientation, gender identity, race, and ethnic studies are being felt by educators and parents, a New York University study found. 

https://floridaphoenix.com/2024/10/09/the-limitation-effect-nyu-study-examines-effect-of-censorship-in-schools/?

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In a State With School Vouchers For All, Low-Income Families Aren’t Choosing to Use Them

Alma Nuñez, a longtime South Phoenix restaurant cashier with three kids, attended a community event a few years ago at which a speaker gave a presentation about Arizona’s school voucher program. She was intrigued.

https://www.propublica.org/article/arizona-school-vouchers-esa-private-schools?

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In Asheville, high school seniors make key life choices under the stress of Helene recovery

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — On a recent Friday, Ari Cohen and three friends — all seniors at Asheville High School — gathered to play UNO inside his house, next to a pile of bottled water in his living room.

https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-high-school-education-da215ba2eaa7b0ea72d35975548ad4d5?

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Conservatives could win control of Kansas and Nebraska state school boards At issue are familiar efforts by conservative Republicans and groups to limit what public K-12 schools can teach about racism, diversity, sexuality and gender. But also up for debate are skill-building lessons that conservatives reject as social engineering. Read more.

Why this matters: An effort to teach soft skills — such as persistence, tolerance for others and managing emotions — came after surveys in recent years suggested that businesses see them as crucial for future employees. But some parents, state lawmakers and groups see what’s sometimes called social and emotional learning, or SEL, as promoting liberal values.   Conservative parents, groups on the right and Republican officials across the U.S. who’ve wanted to ban some books and other materials are increasingly including SEL among the “woke” concepts or programs they want removed from the classroom. SEL has joined DEI — for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives — and CRT for critical race theory, which centers on the idea that racism is systemic in U.S. institutions.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Members of Congress call on companies to retain DEI programs as court cases grind on   Black male teachers are a rarity in preschools. This pioneering program wants to change that   Vouchers ease start-up stress for churches seeing demand for more Christian schools

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Lunchables

Lunchables have been removed from the National School Lunch Program, months after Consumer Reports said sodium levels in the meal kits were too high. Kraft Heinz, the company that produces Lunchables, said it pulled the product because demand did not reach its targets. "The USDA should maintain stricter eligibility standards for the school lunch programs so that the millions of kids that depend on it get the healthier options they deserve," said Brian Ronholm, director of food policy at Consumer Reports. The National School Lunch Program –– a federally assisted program that provides low-cost and free nutritionally balanced lunches to students –– serves nearly 30 million kids, according to the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service.

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Texas is one step closer to allowing Bible content in elementary school lessons Texas would allow Bible-infused lessons in elementary schools under changes that were set for a final vote Friday. The proposed curriculum that could test boundaries between religion and public education in the U.S. narrowly cleared a preliminary vote this week at the Texas State Board of Education. Read more.

Why this matters: If adopted, the new Texas curriculum would follow Republican-led efforts in neighboring states to give religion more of a presence in public schools. In Oklahoma, the state’s education chief has ordered a copy of the Bible in every classroom, while Louisiana wants to make all of the state’s public school classrooms post the Ten Commandments beginning next year.   The curriculum — designed by the state’s public education agency — would allow teachings from the Bible such as the Golden Rule and lessons from books such as Genesis into classrooms. Under the plan, it would be optional for schools to adopt the curriculum, though they would receive additional funding if they did so.   The material draws on lessons from Christianity more than any other religion in the proposed reading and language arts modules for kindergarten through fifth grade, which critics say would alienate students from different faith backgrounds and potentially violate the First Amendment.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Arkansas governor proposes nearly $6.5B budget, with half of spending increase going to school vouchers   New Hampshire courts hear 2 cases on transgender girls playing girls sports   Ohio offers a new way to use public money for Christian schools. Opponents say it’s unconstitutional

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I'm posting this here because he's addressing the placing of the Ten Commandments in all schools in Louisiana!!

The Ten Commandments

Public schools required to display the Ten Commandments? Such a rule sounds surprising, but earlier this year, lawmakers made it real in Louisiana. And if you’ve kept up with the news, you know there's an active lawsuit challenging it. Shawn Boonstra dives into the controversy, exploring not only the line between church and state but also God’s reason for sharing His moral law with us in the first place.

https://www.voiceofprophecy.com/authentic/episode/s8e09

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Texas education board approves optional Bible-infused curriculum for elementary schools

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas’ education board voted Friday to allow Bible-infused teachings in elementary schools under optional new curriculum that could test boundaries between religion and public classrooms in the U.S.

https://apnews.com/article/texas-bible-religion-schools-52b74577982b34ce2607b693bd51cae7?

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Unlikely Trump can actually eliminate Education Department, experts say

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to get rid of the U.S. Department of Education will be far easier said than done.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2024/11/25/dc/unlikely-trump-can-actually-eliminate-education-department-experts-say/?

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Assaults on higher education signal authoritarian intent

Donald Trump was perfectly serious when he said he “loves the poorly educated.”

https://floridaphoenix.com/2024/12/02/assaults-on-higher-education-signal-authoritarian-intent/?

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‘Healthy masculinity’

Some high school boys are starting to talk about gender, sex and other sensitive subjects at clubs designed to help them grow up to be good men. It’s a safe space for the students to discuss their feelings, expectations and self-worth.

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Teen drinking hits record low

Data: Monitoring the Future. Chart: Sara Wise/Axios Teen alcohol and drug use reached notable lows this year, Axios' April Rubin reports from the University of Michigan's annual Monitoring the Future study. Why it matters: Delaying substance use until after adolescence could decrease addiction, researchers say. By the numbers: 🍺 Alcohol: 42% of 12th graders reported consumption, down from 75% in 1997. Among 10th graders, consumption fell from 65% to 26%. 🌿 Marijuana: Consumption levels are the lowest they have been in the past three decades: 26% for 12th graders and 16% for 10th graders. 💨 Nicotine vaping: 12th-grade use was 21%, compared to 35% in 2020 and 19% in 2017. 📈 Yes, but: 6% of 12th graders said they use nicotine pouches, up from 3% in 2023. Go deeper.