If you’ve ever had friends who went to different schools than you, you know that it’s very possible to have a different amount of homework based on the school you go to. However, did you know you may also be doing a different amount of homework based on the state in which you live?
Depending on your state, you could be doing as much as 86% more homework than people on the lower end. This analysis of which states have the most homework will give you all the information you need to know where you stand.
Average Across America
What’s the average when it comes to everyone as a whole? Although learning the extremes can be very interesting, it’s great to have a baseline so you know what to compare it to. On average, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that elementary and middle schoolers have the least, followed by high schoolers, then college students.
- Elementary and middle schoolers have 42.4 minutes per day
- High schoolers have 78 minutes per day
- College students have 116 minutes per day
Elementary and Middle School
Most elementary and middle schoolers don’t have a lot of homework. However, many people believe that homework helps young students develop study skills, which is why it’s assigned in these grades.
The highest amount of homework for elementary and middle school students hits almost an hour.
- California: 56 minutes
- Maine: 55.7 minutes
- Louisiana: 54 minutes
- New Mexico: 54 minutes
- Washington: 53.1 minutes
On the other end of the spectrum, average homework bottoms out at about half that.
- Rhode Island: 30 minutes
- Kansas: 30 minutes
- Nevada: 30 minutes
- Oregon: 33 minutes
- Arkansas: 34.3 minutes
High School
High schoolers have significantly more homework than elementary and middle schoolers. Even the states with the lowest amount of high school homework are higher than the states with the highest amount of elementary and middle school homework.
These are the states with the highest amount of homework:
- Vermont: 110 minutes
- Maine: 107.2 minutes
- West Virginia: 102 minutes
- Louisiana: 102 minutes
- Connecticut: 93 minutes
On the lower end, high schoolers still tend to have around an hour of homework daily:
- Kansas: 60 minutes
- Rhode Island: 60 minutes
- Utah: 60 minutes
- Iowa: 62.3 minutes
- Oklahoma: 63.8 minutes
College
What about college? Although you would assume college students to have universally more homework than any high school students, the two actually overlap quite a bit. The state with the most high school homework assigns more homework than 17 states for college homework.
On the upper end, college students definitely have more homework than high school students:
- Idaho: 141.3 minutes
- Oregon: 140 minutes
- Nebraska: 135 minutes
- Wisconsin: 135 minutes
- Kentucky: 134.3 minutes
However, on the lower end, some college students have less homework than some high school students:
- Delaware: 85 minutes
- Hawaii: 88 minutes
- New York: 90 minutes
- Rhode Island: 90 minutes
- Indiana: 94 minutes
Does It Actually Help?
This is the most important question. Does more homework actually have an impact on grades, test scores, and future prognoses?
The unfortunate answer is, probably not. On a state level, homework amounts seem to have no correlation with either SAT scores or GPA. That means it’s likely that the homework is more for show than anything.
However, that doesn’t mean nothing helps raise these scores. In fact, tutoring and online resources have both shown to be incredibly effective in raising class scores and improving test scores. If you’re really looking for a good way to improve your school numbers, that’s your best option, not more homework.
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