Supply: Brookings, “Declining public college enrollment,” August 2025
Personal college enrollment flat
Earlier than the pandemic, the share of scholars in conventional public faculties held regular, hovering close to 85 p.c between 2016 and 2020. After the pandemic, conventional public college enrollment plummeted to beneath 80 p.c 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 p.c of scholars in 2016-17 to six p.c in 2023-24. The variety of kids attending digital faculties virtually doubled from 0.7 p.c earlier than the pandemic in 2019-20 to 1.2 p.c in 2020-21 and has remained elevated.
Surprisingly, personal college enrollment has stayed regular at virtually 9 p.c 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 packages to assist pay the tutoring. 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 p.c between 2021 and 2024, in comparison with states with out vouchers. A new federal tax credit score to fund personal college scholarships remains to be greater than a 12 months away from going into impact on Jan. 1, 2027, and maybe a higher shift into personal schooling remains to be forward.
Defections from conventional public faculties are largest in Black and high-poverty districts
I’d have guessed that wealthier households who can afford personal college tuition can be extra prone to search options. However high-poverty districts had the most important share of scholars outdoors the standard public-school sector. Along with personal college, they have been enrolled in charters, digital faculties, specialised faculties for college kids with disabilities or different various faculties, or have been homeschooling.
Greater than 1 in 4 college students in high-poverty districts aren’t enrolled in a conventional 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 pupil enrollment outdoors of conventional public faculties, by district poverty
Supply: Brookings, “Declining public college enrollment,” August 2025
Share of scholars not enrolled in conventional public faculties by race and ethnicity
Supply: Brookings, “Declining public college enrollment,” August 2025
These discrepancies matter for the scholars who stay in conventional public faculties. Faculties in low-income and Black neighborhoods are actually dropping probably 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 fee wanted to switch 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 colleges 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 children are being born, the general public college panorama is shifting. Buckle up and prepare for mass public college closures.
This story about college enrollment declines was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, impartial information group centered on inequality and innovation in schooling. Join Proof Factors and different Hechinger newsletters.
