ASCE released the 2025 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure in March 2025 on 18 key infrastructure sectors. Understanding the new technological changes and the lawmakers’ infrastructure bill, you must know the report card and what it implies.
ASCE 2025 Report Card
The American Society of Civil Engineering has released the Report Card for America’s Infrastructure every four years since 1998 to evaluate the current conditions, performance, and highlight the gaps in the sector. The recent edition of the Report Card was released in March 2025 and evaluated the current grade of infrastructure.
The ASCE assesses the 18 sectors and grades them from A to F in the report card, examining the current conditions, requirements, and other factors. The report card reveals that the federal investment has positively affected the infrastructure sector, which is good, but the sector needs improvement.
The overall Grade for the American Infrastructure is a C grade (meaning Mediocre, requires attention), improved from a 2021 C-, and it is the highest in 28 years. The report also recommends solutions and next steps for industry leaders and the government to enhance the American infrastructure.
What do ASCE 2025 Grades mean?
Before you understand the key findings of the ASCE 2025 report card, you should understand what each grade means:
- A Grade: It means it’s going well and perfect for the future, meaning the infrastructure is in excellent condition and meets the future needs of modernity and technological advancement.
- B Grade: It means the infrastructure is good, but some elements require attention to make it excellent and add to American infrastructure development.
- C Grade: It means the infrastructure is in fair to good condition, where the society saw some signs of deterioration and hence needs attention to improve the conditions.
- D Grade: It means the American infrastructure is in poor condition, mostly below standard, and it involves greater risk.
- F grade: It means the infrastructure is failing and critical, and many components of the system are at risk of failure.
What are the key findings of the ASCE 2025 report card?
You can find the ASCE report card key findings and their grades for each evaluated sector below:
- Among the 18 assessed sectors, eight them have shown some grade increases, and some of them are still stuck at D and D-. Here you can find the grade for each sector in the 2025 Report cards:
| Sector | Grade |
| Aviation | D+ |
| Bridges | C |
| Broadbank | C+ |
| Dams | D+ |
| Drinking Water | C- |
| Energy | D+ |
| Hazardous Waste | C |
| Inland Waterways | C- |
| Levees | D+ |
| Ports | B |
| Public Parks | C- |
| Rail | B- |
| Roads | D+ |
| Schools | D+ |
| Stormwater | D |
| Solid waste | C+ |
| Transit | D |
| Wastewater | D+ |
- The improvement in the sectors is mainly due to the government and private sector investment in systems that had received attention in the past.
- The energy and rail sector has raised concerns about its future needs, capacity, and safety.
- The overall C grade for the American Infrastructure indicates the $1.2 trillion investment is working well; however, we still have a long way to go.
What are the challenges and gaps in America’s infrastructure?
Based on the ASCE report Card, you can find the following gaps or challenges that are creating problems for the sector:
- Investment gap: As per the report, the US has $3.7 trillion investment gap in the next decade based on the current conditions.
- Climate issues: The US has faced many natural disasters and extreme weather events over the years. For instance, last year, there were 27 extreme weather events, which have affected the infrastructure badly.
- Maintenance: Many infrastructure, dams, bridges, water systems, and others are 50 or 100 years old, hence the cost of maintaining them is higher, which has led to deferred maintenance.
- Unavailable Data: The report indicates that the unavailable and unreliable data is one of the factors affecting the growth of American infrastructure.
What is the ASCE recommendation?
The ASCE has also proposed some recommendations to improve the American infrastructure and deal with the challenges ahead, such as:
- Advance Policy and innovation: The society urges the state, local, and federal governments to focus on modernizing infrastructure policies that will align with innovations and changing the technology to ensure it keeps going with evolution.
- Focus on resilience: With climate-related disasters occurring many times in a year, the ASCE indicates the need to work on long-term resilience infrastructure that can withstand the natural disasters and adapt to the changing conditions.
- Sustain Investment: ASCE says the 2021 IIJA will expire in 2026, which brings uncertainty in future funding. The 2021 IIJA and IRS induced $580 billion investments for critical systems, but now with its ending, a major concern has been raised; hence, to bridge this gap, we need long-term funding to boost the system.
The American infrastructure’s overall C grade is great news, but the sector needs great attention to sustain this growth and improvement.
