Вы можете использовать strtotime для преобразования времени, а затем array-Reduction для их подсчета.
Примите во внимание следующее:
$arr = array();
$arr[] = array("student_absence_from_time" => "08:00", "student_absence_to_time" => "10:00");
$arr[] = array("student_absence_from_time" => "09:00", "student_absence_to_time" => "10:00");
$arr[] = array("student_absence_from_time" => "08:00", "student_absence_to_time" => "09:00");
function cntAbsence($carry, $item) {
return $carry + strtotime($item["student_absence_to_time"]) - strtotime($item["student_absence_from_time"]);
} // adding the different between "from_time" to "to_time"
echo array_reduce($arr, "cntAbsence", 0) / 3600; // time is in second so divided by 3600 to get hours and use 0 as init