Between fall 2019 and fall 2023, public school enrollment fell from 50.8 million to 49.5 million, a loss of more than 1.2 million students, or 2.5%. The pandemic accelerated that decline, but enrollment was already falling in some grades and communities before COVID, and that trend is expected to continue: The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) projects overall enrollment will fall below 47 million by 2031.
Yet a FutureEd analysis based on data from NCES, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and other sources, finds that enrollment trends vary widely by race, grade level, geography and schools. That variation offers important insight into how the education landscape is shifting, where the challenges are most acute and what it means for the future of the public school system.