Oldest Kids In Class Do Better, Even Through College

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Starting kindergarten later could boost kids' grades and improve their odds of attending a top college. Being the youngest kid in class can hurt their academic performance.

Children who start school at an older age do better than their younger classmates and have better odds of attending college and graduating from an elite institution. That's according to a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Many parents already delay enrolling their children in school, believing they'll do better if they're a bit older. It's sort of "academic red-shirting," says one of the study's authors, David Figlio, an economist at Northwestern University, using a term that originated in college athletics and refers to recruits who are held out of games for a year.

The study focused on differences between Florida children born just before and after the Sept. 1 cutoff date for starting kindergarten. That means the youngest children in any class were born in August and the oldest in September of the previous year. Figlio and his co-authors found that, on average, demographically similar September-born children performed better than their younger August-born classmates, all through their academic careers.

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