JUST LET THE KIDS $NOOZE!

$9B boost for nation

Here’s another reason to love the “snooze” button.

Letting teens sleep in a little longer before school would pump at least $9 billion extra into the US economy every year — because well-rested adolescents learn better at school and don’t crash their cars as often, a study has found.

“A small change could result in big economic benefits over a short period of time for the US. In fact, the level of benefit and period of time it would take to recoup the costs from the policy change is unprecedented in economic terms,” said Marco Hafner, a senior economist at the RAND Corporation, which released the study this week.

Middle and high schools across the country have an average start time of 8 a.m.,, but the researchers 8:30 a.m.

That’s because teens’ brains are wired to nod off — and wake up — three hours later than those of adult.

With the extra Z’s, kids will make more A’s, they say.

On average, just one extra hour of snoozing increases the probability of a student graduating high school by 13.3 percent and attending college by 9.6 percent, according to the researchers.

That translates into better lifetime earnings for well-rested scholars — not to mention the lives saved with fewer kids falling asleep at the wheel on their way to class.

If every public school started no later than 8:30 a.m., the country would start seeing an economic impact within two years, RAND estimates, adding that within a decade, the nation’s economy would be $83 billion better off.

NNew York state alone would mamake $2,970 per student after 10

impimplementing the changes like rehigher, the researchers say, explaining that their estimates were conservative because they did not account for the other health benefits of getting more sleep, like lower suicide and obesity rates.