Public school enrollment fell in 40 states after 2019–20
American Factbook Research
Published
Data retrieved
Public schools in the fifty states and the District of Columbia enrolled 47,786,390 students from kindergarten to grade twelve in 2024–25, 1,424,354 fewer than the 49,210,744 of 2019–20: a fall of 2.9%.
Enrollment fell in 40 of 50 states from 2019–20 to 2024–25
The change in each state's public school enrollment, kindergarten to grade twelve, as a share of its enrollment in the first year. The District of Columbia is drawn beside the states.
National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education — NCES Common Core of Data — public school membership by state, 2014–15 onwards
The figures behind this chart
| State | Change in enrollment | First year | Newest year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mississippi | -8.2% | 458,841 | 421,220 |
| Hawaii | -7.8% | 179,331 | 165,335 |
| West Virginia | -7.8% | 246,803 | 227,606 |
| New Mexico | -7.7% | 320,719 | 295,965 |
| Maine | -7.6% | 174,136 | 160,942 |
| New Hampshire | -7.6% | 172,818 | 159,749 |
| Oregon | -6.4% | 582,661 | 545,088 |
| New York | -6.2% | 2,615,760 | 2,453,205 |
| Louisiana | -5.8% | 683,454 | 643,609 |
| California | -5.8% | 6,163,001 | 5,805,510 |
| Rhode Island | -5.7% | 140,549 | 132,542 |
| Vermont | -5.5% | 78,087 | 73,767 |
| Illinois | -5.5% | 1,865,886 | 1,762,684 |
| Michigan | -5.4% | 1,448,311 | 1,370,051 |
| Wyoming | -5.3% | 94,214 | 89,228 |
| Colorado | -5.2% | 878,798 | 833,228 |
| Wisconsin | -5.1% | 799,062 | 758,671 |
| Massachusetts | -4.8% | 928,657 | 884,270 |
| Nevada | -4.3% | 484,890 | 463,990 |
| Kentucky | -4.2% | 659,919 | 632,015 |
| Arizona | -4.1% | 1,130,693 | 1,083,814 |
| Kansas | -3.6% | 474,404 | 457,101 |
| Connecticut | -3.5% | 505,210 | 487,640 |
| Washington | -3.3% | 1,108,142 | 1,071,987 |
| Virginia | -3.1% | 1,262,591 | 1,223,117 |
| Missouri | -2.7% | 876,357 | 852,368 |
| Montana | -2.7% | 148,009 | 143,971 |
| New Jersey | -2.7% | 1,343,638 | 1,307,055 |
| Minnesota | -2.4% | 867,999 | 847,083 |
| Pennsylvania | -2.3% | 1,722,341 | 1,682,241 |
| Iowa | -2.1% | 485,856 | 475,466 |
| Maryland | -2.0% | 877,201 | 859,450 |
| Ohio | -1.8% | 1,647,478 | 1,617,675 |
| Indiana | -1.5% | 1,030,417 | 1,014,512 |
| Georgia | -1.4% | 1,719,609 | 1,695,288 |
| Alaska | -1.4% | 128,033 | 126,288 |
| Arkansas | -1.2% | 479,432 | 473,912 |
| Tennessee | -1.1% | 981,321 | 970,302 |
| North Carolina | -0.9% | 1,537,920 | 1,523,688 |
| Oklahoma | -0.2% | 661,816 | 660,639 |
| Utah | 0.1% | 667,947 | 668,372 |
| Nebraska | 0.2% | 310,523 | 311,047 |
| Florida | 0.2% | 2,792,884 | 2,798,096 |
| Alabama | 0.7% | 724,178 | 729,184 |
| South Dakota | 0.8% | 136,637 | 137,798 |
| Texas | 0.9% | 5,220,228 | 5,269,606 |
| Delaware | 1.2% | 137,716 | 139,425 |
| Idaho | 1.4% | 307,412 | 311,804 |
| South Carolina | 1.5% | 758,809 | 769,854 |
| North Dakota | 3.3% | 113,056 | 116,762 |
| District of Columbia | 6.7% | 76,990 | 82,170 |
Most of it came in one year. Between 2019–20 and 2020–21 enrollment fell by 1,077,966, 75.7% of the whole fall to 2024–25. It did not come back: in four of the four school years since, enrollment was lower than in 2020–21.
By state
Enrollment fell in 40 of the 50 states and rose in 10. The largest falls as a share of a state's students were in Mississippi, 8.2% or 37,621 students, and Hawaii, 7.8% or 13,996. In students, California lost the most: 357,491, 5.8% of its enrollment.
Of the states that grew, North Dakota grew most as a share, 3.3% or 3,706 students, and Texas added the most students, 49,378, a rise of 0.9%. The District of Columbia, counted apart from the states, grew by 6.7%, 5,180 students, more than any state.
Why pre-kindergarten is left out
NCES counts a state's pre-kindergarten pupils only where the state reported them, and which states did changed over these years. California reported none in either 2019–20 or 2024–25, and Oregon reported its pre-kindergarten in 2019–20 but not in 2024–25. A total including pre-kindergarten would move with that reporting, so every figure here counts kindergarten to grade twelve, with the ungraded pupils NCES counts beside them. NCES's own Digest of Education Statistics adds an estimate for the missing pre-kindergarten, so its totals are higher than these by that estimate.
What these figures cannot show
Enrollment is a count taken once a year, in the fall, of the pupils on a public school's rolls. It does not say where the pupils who left went, whether to a private school, to schooling at home, to another state or out of school, and it does not say why. Births, moves and the choices of families all bear on it, and none of them is in this file. So the fall is a fact about public school rolls, and this brief does not name its cause.
What this cannot show
- Every figure leaves out pre-kindergarten, because which states reported it changed over these years. NCES's Digest of Education Statistics adds an estimate for the pre-K a state did not report, so its totals are higher than these.
- Enrollment is the count of pupils on public school rolls once a year, in the fall. It does not say where pupils who left went, or why enrollment changed.
- The District of Columbia is counted apart from the fifty states in the counts of states that fell and rose, and appears in the chart beside them.
Sources
- NCES Common Core of Data — public school membership by state, 2014–15 onwards, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. U.S. Government work under 17 U.S.C. §105; NCES publishes no license for the CCD files. NCES's requested citation: "SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD)". Retrieved September 25, 2026.
Every figure above is the recorded result of a query checked into the repository alongside this text. Continuous integration re-runs those queries and refuses the change if a number here and a number there disagree. Read the methodology, or the datasets behind it.
Published by American Factbook LLC. An independent publication.