Supply: Brookings, “Declining public school enrollment,” August 2025
Non-public college enrollment flat
Earlier than the pandemic, the share of scholars in conventional public faculties held regular, hovering close to 85 % between 2016 and 2020. After the pandemic, conventional public college enrollment plummeted to beneath 80 % and hasn’t rebounded.
The mysterious lacking kids account for an enormous chunk of the decline. However households additionally switched to constitution and digital faculties. Constitution college enrollment rose from 5 % of scholars in 2016-17 to six % in 2023-24. The variety of kids attending digital faculties virtually doubled from 0.7 % earlier than the pandemic in 2019-20 to 1.2 % in 2020-21 and has remained elevated.
Surprisingly, personal college enrollment has stayed regular at virtually 9 % of school-age kids between 2016-17 and 2023-24, in keeping with this Brookings estimate.
I had anticipated personal college enrollment to skyrocket, as households soured on public college disruptions through the pandemic, and as 11 states, together with Arizona and Florida, launched their very own academic financial savings account or new voucher applications to assist pay the schooling. However one other evaluation, launched this month by researchers at Tulane College, echoed the Brookings numbers. It discovered that non-public college enrollments had elevated by solely 3 to 4 % between 2021 and 2024, in comparison with states with out vouchers. A brand new federal tax credit score to fund personal college scholarships continues to be greater than a 12 months away from going into impact on Jan. 1, 2027, and maybe a higher shift into personal schooling continues to be forward.
Defections from conventional public faculties are largest in Black and high-poverty districts
I might have guessed that wealthier households who can afford personal college tuition could be extra prone to search options. However high-poverty districts had the biggest share of scholars exterior the standard public-school sector. Along with personal college, they have been enrolled in charters, digital faculties, specialised faculties for college students with disabilities or different different faculties, or have been homeschooling.
Greater than 1 in 4 college students in high-poverty districts aren’t enrolled in a standard public college, in contrast with 1 in 6 college students in low-poverty college districts. The steepest public college enrollment losses are concentrated in predominantly Black college districts. A 3rd of scholars in predominantly Black districts usually are not in conventional public faculties, double the share of white and Hispanic college students.
Share of scholar enrollment exterior of conventional public faculties, by district poverty
Supply: Brookings, “Declining public school enrollment,” August 2025
Share of scholars not enrolled in conventional public faculties by race and ethnicity
Supply: Brookings, “Declining public school enrollment,” August 2025
These discrepancies matter for the scholars who stay in conventional public faculties. Colleges in low-income and Black neighborhoods are actually shedding essentially the most college students, forcing even steeper funds cuts.
The demographic timebomb
Earlier than the pandemic, U.S. faculties have been already headed for an enormous contraction. The common American lady is now giving beginning to only one.7 kids over her lifetime, nicely beneath the two.1 fertility charge wanted to exchange the inhabitants. Fertility charges are projected to fall additional nonetheless. The Brookings analysts assume extra immigrants will proceed to enter the nation, regardless of present immigration restrictions, however not sufficient to offset the decline in births.
Even when households return to their pre-pandemic enrollment patterns, the inhabitants decline would imply 2.2 million fewer public college college students by 2050. But when mother and father hold selecting different kinds of faculties on the tempo noticed since 2020, conventional public faculties may lose as many as 8.5 million college students, shrinking from 43.06 million in 2023-24 to as few as 34.57 million by mid-century.
Between college students gone lacking, the alternatives some Black households and households in high-poverty districts are making and what number of youngsters are being born, the general public college panorama is shifting. Buckle up and prepare for mass public college closures.
