Annual Colorado youth report shows improvements in mental health, early childhood education but more kids experiencing homelessness

The Colorado Children’s Campaign has released the 2025 Kids Count data book, offering a snapshot of how the state’s children are doing. The data covers four areas including economic security, health, early childhood education and K-12 education.

The 2025 report highlights the growth of Colorado’s developing early childhood system; the responsiveness of its public health programs to a changing economic environment; and improvements in youth mental health.

However, it also found a significant number of children experiencing homelessness, stagnating test scores and troubling trends in deaths among teenagers.

“Colorado is doing really great in some areas and definitely has some work to do in others,” said vice president of research, Maya Gould. “One of our big highlights this year was recognizing the importance of state-funded and publicly funded programs for kids.”

That includes participation in the Child Health Plan Plus program which grew by roughly 60,000 enrollees in fiscal year 2023-24. The program helps to cover children whose families make too much money to be eligible for Medicaid but are still considered to be low-income. “What we’re seeing for the first time in this report is that the program is working as intended after the end of some pandemic-era policies that led to a lot of children losing Medicaid coverage,” Gould said.

However, the report also shows a need for more supportive programs for families experiencing financial instability. 

“Costs are definitely rising in Colorado. The most troubling data point is that the increase in children experiencing homelessness is pretty drastic between 2023 and 2024,” said Gould. 

According to the state’s January Point-in-Time count from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the number of Colorado public school students identified as homeless increased by roughly 28 percent over that time frame. 

In addition, last year, Colorado’s Point-in-Time count reported 4,781 children experiencing homelessness, more than double the 2,291 children counted in the prior year.

Gould said while the growing number of students experiencing homelessness is a nationwide trend, it seems particularly pernicious in Colorado. 

“We're still trying to understand drivers and solutions, although some of our partners are pointing to trouble in affording housing and also an influx of more newcomer families into our state,” Gould said. In the 2024-25 school year, there were nearly 30,000 immigrant students attending Colorado public schools, compared with roughly 15,000 the prior year.   

One metric improving in the state is youth mental health. Between 2021 and 2023, more middle and high school students reported they were better able to manage their stress. Fewer also had feelings of hopelessness. In addition, the rate of children ages 15 to 19 who died as a result of suicide decreased to 14.6 death per every 100,000 teens in 2023, down from 18.1 deaths in 2016. 

“These are really promising trends and really point to the fact that our efforts across the last few years, especially post-pandemic, to really support our youth and support mental health have been pretty successful,” Gould said. The report did however, find an increase in accidental overdose and motor vehicle deaths in children ages 15 to 19. It comes as the state has seen an increase in the circulation of deadly drugs like fentanyl and an overall increase in erratic driving behavior.

Another metric struggling post-pandemic is the state’s reading and math scores achieved by K-12 students.

“In 2024, 56 percent of third graders through eighth graders didn't meet expectations in English and 66 percent of students didn't meet expectations in math,” Gould said. “We did see some improvements from the prior year, which is great news, but all scores still remain lower than they were prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. That said, less than half of students were meeting expectations before the pandemic.”

Early childhood education saw more gains than K-12, in part because of the state’s new Universal Preschool program. 

In its first year, the program provided free, part-time preschool to more than 40,000 children, or roughly 70 percent of Colorado 4-year-olds.

The numbers also show the state’s child care capacity is growing. Between September 2023 and September 2024, Colorado added roughly 4,000 slots for children under 6 and 6,000 slots for school-age children. The growth is important especially in metropolitan areas and mountain towns, where child care is most expensive. 

“Colorado is one of the most expensive states in the nation for childcare,” Gould said. “On average it costs a family about $20,000 to send an infant to a licensed childcare center, which is particularly high, and we do see that the Denver metro area specifically is one of the most expensive parts of our state for a child. In 2023, a family of four in Denver County needed to make almost $117,000 to be able to meet just their basic needs, which is significantly higher than the state average of about $93,000 a year.”

Another improvement in early childhood metrics is that more children are getting evaluated and supported for developmental delays. Between 2021 and 2023, Colorado nearly doubled the number of young kids who were evaluated, leading to more kids getting the services they needed.  

However, fewer parents are seeking prenatal care in the first trimester of pregnancy. Gould said it’s not clear what’s causing the dip.

“We saw that 22 percent of babies in 2023 were born to parents who didn't receive early prenatal care compared to 18 percent the year prior,” Gould said. “Prenatal care is actually covered by most insurance plans including public health insurance, so this is something that there's a lot of research going on around the state to better understand what's driving this change and why not all of our parents are really getting the early prenatal care that they need. 

The data will be used to inform lawmakers at both the state and local levels ahead of legislative sessions and fiscal year allocations.