British students could lose $55K each in lifetime earnings due to COVID-19
Update 9:50 a.m. ET Feb. 1: Students in the United Kingdom could lose an average of about $55,000 (£40,000) in lifetime earnings due to lost school time as the coronavirus pandemic continues, according to BBC News and a report from the British Institute for Fiscal Studies.

In the Institute for Fiscal Studies' analysis, officials said the brunt would fall mostly on children from lower-income families, "resulting in a likely rise in inequality over the long-run."

"A loss of over half a year of normal schooling is likely to have far-reaching long-run consequences," Luke Sibieta, research fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said Monday in a news release.

"We will all be less productive, poorer, have less money to spend on public services, more unequal and we may be less happy and healthy as a result. Standard evidence on the returns to schooling would imply a total loss of £350 (billion, about $478 billion), or £90 (billion, about $123 billion) under incredibly optimistic assumptions. The inescapable conclusion is that lost learning represents a gigantic long-term risk for future prosperity, the public finances, the future path of inequality and well-being.”

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