Public school enrollment dipped slightly in the most recent count and there are some bigger, long-term warning signs in the early grades.
Enrollment in all 50 states and the District of Columbia hit 49.5 million students in the fall of 2023, according to the latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics. That’s a slight 0.2% decrease from the fall of 2022 and a larger 2.5% decline from just before the COVID pandemic in 2019.
A deeper dive into the numbers shows some substantial variance between grade levels. PreK-8 enrollment dropped 4.5% to 33.9 million students from fall 2019 to fall 2023.
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High school enrollment, on the other hand, grew about 2% to 15.6 million over the same period.
State-by-state public school enrollment
Enrollment also varied substantially between states, with declines seen in states in different regions and on both coasts. Public school enrollment fell by more than 4% in 18 states from fall 2019 to fall 2023, with the largest slides (more than 5%) occurring in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and West Virginia.
Enrollment dipped by more than 1% in Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Fall 2023 enrollment also remained below pre-pandemic levels in outlying areas:
- Puerto Rico: Fall 2023 public school enrollment was about 241,000, an 18% decline.
- Department of Defense Education Activity schools: 7% decline
- U.S. Virgin Islands: 6% decline.
- Bureau of Indian Education schools: 4% decline
Enrollment grew the most—over 2%—in Washington, D.C. and North Dakota.
The data also noted the race/ethnicity of students in fall 2023:
- American Indian/Alaska Native: 0.9%
- Asian: 5.6%
- Black: 14.9%
- Hispanic: 29.5%
- Pacific Islander: 0.4%
- White: 43.7%
- Two or more races: 5.1%
