Latest data shows just 10 states have avoided K-12 public school enrollment decreases

K-12 student counts continued to decline nationwide according to new data released by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The latest data set includes student counts from 50 states for the 2024-25 school year, showing that enrollments have dropped by 2.8%, or 1.4 million students, compared with the fall of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

During that time, enrollment has declined in 40 states, especially in just three states. With their large populations and some of the largest school districts in the nation, New York, California, and Illinois accounted for 44% of the total reduction in public school enrollments from 2019 to 2024. 

In percentage terms, West Virginia, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Mississippi, New Mexico and Maine experienced the biggest decrease in students, each losing more than 7%. In 31 states, public schools lost 2% or more of their K-12 enrollments compared to 2019.

Table 1: National change in enrollment between fall 2019 and fall 2024 per NCES

However, a handful of states didn’t lose students. Eight states, Alabama, Delaware, Idaho, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas, gained students during the 2019-2025 time frame, adding about 80,000 students to their combined student counts. Two other states, Utah and Florida, maintained their enrollments during that period. 

These 10 states likely defied national public school enrollment trends due to broader demographic shifts, especially inbound domestic and international migration. Figure 2 shows how births and migration may have affected public school enrollments in these states.

Figure 2: Demographic changes in the 10 states where K-12 enrollments didn’t decline

Except for Florida, births declined in all of these states in 2014 compared to 2019, corresponding to the kindergarten cohorts who started school in 2019 and 2024, consistent with the national baby bust that began in 2007. Compared with 2014, 2019 had an average of 4.6% fewer children born, which reduced the corresponding number of kindergarten students in 2024. 

New residents of these states, nearly half of whom hailed from abroad, appear to be a key driver of why public school enrollments in these 10 states avoided declines. Even though almost 33,000 fewer children were born in these states’ 2024 kindergarten cohorts than in 2019, enrollments increased by more than 80,000 students.

Census Bureau data showed that, on net, these states increased their general populations by 5.6% on average between April 2020 and July 2024, adding more than three million residents. Florida and Texas alone attracted 79% of these new residents.

In five of 10 states, new residents from abroad accounted for the majority of migrants, reversing domestic population declines in states such as North Dakota and Nebraska. 

While NCES  doesn’t parse out school-aged children in its data, gains through domestic or international movers either increased the number of students or softened enrollment losses due to declining births.

While shifts in domestic and international migration have been sufficient to offset some of these losses to date, this may not be the case in the future. For example, a 2026 Cato Institute analysis estimated that legal and illegal immigration dropped by 81% and 71%, respectively, as of 2026 compared to December 2024.

As economic and migratory policies and factors change, states that rely on new residents to maintain K-12 enrollments at or above their pre-pandemic levels may find themselves in the same boat as the rest of the nation, where enrollments are declining. A 2025 analysis by the Brookings Institution forecast that national enrollments would drop by 1.8 million students, or 4%, in a best-case scenario, or by 3.8 million students, or 9%, in a worst-case scenario, by 2035. 

Additionally, increased competition from a more robust education marketplace has also contributed to enrollment changes. National satisfaction with public schools is at an all-time low, contributing to a rise in homeschooling and a resurgence in private schools. Plus, the expansion of private school choice programs across numerous states since 2021 has made it easier than ever for parents to exit the public school system.

For example, in Florida and South Carolina, private school enrollments increased by 18% and 16.8%, respectively, as of 2024 compared to 2019. Similarly, the number of students in Florida and South Carolina attending homeschools increased by 44.1% and 93%, respectively, during that time. So while those states were among the 10 not losing enrollments, the trends seem pointed in the opposite direction. 

In other cases, however, some losses of public school students are inexplicable. Stanford University’s Thomas Dee found that more than one in three of the students who disappeared from public school enrollments in the wake of the pandemic, approximately 400,000, couldn’t be explained by demographic shifts or corresponding gains in private and homeschools.

All these factors suggest that public schools in all states, including those enjoying a windfall from new residents, should prepare for lower student counts and right-size accordingly.  

A first step in the right direction is increased transparency about facility usage. For example, Indiana and Florida publish annual reports showing which public school facilities are underutilized. In most states, this information isn’t collected or publicly reported. Underutilized facilities are costly and spread education resources thin, which is bad for students and taxpayers alike.

As public schools adjust to a new reality, with fewer students, state policymakers and school district administrators must make difficult but necessary decisions to rightsize. The need for change includes states where enrollments haven’t declined yet but are likely to do so in the near future. In this evolving environment, public officials owe it to students and taxpayers to ensure that district and school consolidations are conducted transparently and reflect efficient use of public funds that best serve the remaining students.

From the states

Open enrollment transparency advances in Vermont, but public school choice proposals in New Hampshire and Missouri fail to gain ground.

In New Hampshire, House Bill 751 was tabled in the State Senate after Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte announced her opposition to the bill, ending the legislative effort to strengthen the state’s K-12 open enrollment program. The proposal would have permitted 10% of a district’s student body to transfer to schools in other districts. If it had been signed into law, the bill would have adopted transparency provisions at the state and local levels, improving the state’s score by 19 points per Reason Foundation’s open enrollment best practices.

The Vermont legislature passed House Bill 955, which would require the state to collect data on the number of open enrollment participants, strengthening state-level transparency. The bill aims to facilitate voluntary school district consolidations, a much-needed reform as the state’s K-12 enrollments have dropped by more than 6% since 2019. The proposal would also change the funding formula and restrict local education spending. The overall political objective of these reforms is to reduce property taxes, which have risen by 40% due to school spending since 2021, Valley News reported earlier this month. The bill currently awaits Gov. Phil Scott’s signature. 

In Missouri, efforts to pass a large education package that included a transparent public school rating system and charter school expansions failed before the end of the legislative session. Last year, Gov. Mike Kehoe signaled support for an A-F grading scale for public schools. However, the corresponding bills failed to garner sufficient support due to disagreements about charter school expansions. 

Federal

The federal government released new guidance on the federal tax-credit scholarship.  

The U.S. Treasury Department previewed guidance for the federal Education Freedom Tax-Credit Scholarships. In remarks, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Tax Policy Kevin Salinger outlined various rules related to scholarship-granting organization operations, student eligibility and verification, and donor reporting requirements. Notably, the guidance explained that school will likely be defined to include public, private, religious, and homeschools. Students, including those at public schools, are eligible to receive scholarships and use them to pay for a broad array of eligible education expenses, such as tutoring or after-school enrichment programs. 

To date, 31 states have announced intentions to participate in the federal tax-credit scholarship program. Set to launch in 2027, the new law allows individual taxpayers to contribute up to $1,700 annually to an approved scholarship-granting organization. Scholarship recipients may use these funds to cover approved education expenses, such as private school tuition, tutoring, or school uniforms. The map below shows the states that have announced decisions to participate in the program.

Figure 3: States that have announced decisions to participate in the federal tax-credit scholarship program

Recommended reading 

Indianapolis Is Overhauling Its Education System. School Advocates Are Split.
Jule Pattison-Gordon at Governing

“This month, the governor signed a law reducing the powers of the Indianapolis district school board and granting several of its responsibilities to a brand-new mayor-appointed body, the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation. This new organization will be charged with building and transportation management for both charter and traditional public schools. It will also be charged with creating a single set of evaluation criteria for both types of schools. The law will also grant charter schools a cut of property tax dollars, a funding stream normally reserved for traditional public schools.”

Putting Pandemic Learning Loss in Perspective
Eric A. Hanusek at Education Next

“On average, our gross domestic product (GDP) would be 6 percent higher per year for the rest of the century had we maintained 2013 achievement levels. Evaluated in present value terms, the amount of economic growth lost due to the learning declines is approximately three times our current GDP of $31 trillion. This is vastly larger than the aggregate GDP losses incurred during the Great Recession of 2008 recession and the Covid-induced recession of 2020 combined.”

Education Scorecard Looks Beyond Recovery
Nat Malkus at the American Enterprise Institute

“Another year of data shows some signs for hope, but the Education Scorecard puts the focus squarely where it needs to be. There has been a dramatic decline in student learning since 2013. It started well before the pandemic, and it is both deep and widespread. This is the central problem in American education. Schools, families, and policymakers ought to pay it far more attention.”

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