In many parts of the country, enrollment in traditional public schools has fallen to its lowest point in decades. However, states, cities, and school districts have been slow to respond to the reality of empty desks. This report examines trends in school enrollment, focusing on several of America's most populous cities, as well as the budgetary…

Since the fall semester of 2016, first-time international student enrollment (ISE[subscript ft]) has declined at U.S. colleges and universities. This trend disrupts a steady upwards trajectory of ISE[subscript ft] rates. Previous research has demonstrated that various political, social, and macroeconomic factors influence the number of…

"Do You Know Where the Children Are? A Five-Year Analysis of Public School Enrollment" examines public school enrollment trends over the last five school years (2019-2024), focusing on patterns between public charter schools and district schools since the pandemic. It examines year-to-year changes in overall enrollment, with charter…

Using rich administrative data from the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office that tracks each student longitudinally, this analysis examines how the onset of the pandemic affected student enrollment duration. Data are disaggregated by student characteristics and college campuses in order to understand variable impacts and equity…

Higher education in the U.S. has undergone dramatic changes as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study uses responses to the Digital Learning Pulse Survey (DLPS) to examine one aspect of those changes -- how institutions deal with declining enrollments. The DLPS project began in the spring of 2020, it was designed to document the…

Hold-harmless provisions in state aid formulas are meant to restrict declines in revenues for school districts. They may take several forms, including limits on the changes in state aid from year to year, supplemental funding for districts with declining enrollment, alternatives for calculating the state aid amount, or use of past enrollments in…

Demographic projections from the California Department of Finance (DOF) suggest that California's public K-12 school system is entering a long period of declining enrollment. Districts with declining enrollment face fiscal pressures, as state funding is tied to the number of students they serve. Declining enrollment also has important implications…

Catholic schools have seen more than a 30% decline in enrollment over the past 20 years. While some of the decline in enrollment may have been spurred by secular trends or the Church abuse scandal, the increase in schools of choice, principally public charter schools, may explain at least some of this decline. In this paper we estimate the effect…

Demographic projections from the California Department of Finance (DOF) suggest that California's public K-12 school system is entering a long period of declining enrollment. Districts with declining enrollment face fiscal pressures, as state funding is tied to the number of students they serve. Declining enrollment also has important implications…

Student enrollment in higher education institutions has undergone fundamental changes over the last decade, a condition only exacerbated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2012 and 2019, the total number of students enrolled at U.S. degree-granting institutions dropped by almost 1.1 million. At the same time, the number of students…

This report describes changes in enrollment counts from Fall 2014 to Fall 2015 and examines the patterns in the percentages of students who were new to AISD and who left AISD after each grade. A separate research brief also was published. [For "Enrollment from Fall 2014 to Fall 2015: Trends for 6th Grade. Publication 15.07b RB," see…

This report features selected research findings from the most recent annual Student Transitions Project (STP) update in Fall of 2018, including B.C. grade 12 graduates of 2001/2002 to 2016/17 and B.C. public post-secondary registrants from 2002/2003 to Fall 2018. In lieu of a brief highlights newsletter, an annual tradition for the STP every June,…

This paper is the first in Pioneer Institute's UMass at a Crossroads series. In the opening study, the authors focus on UMass' significant growth in two areas, academic competitiveness and student enrollment, compared to other New England state universities, MA private universities, national private universities and national public universities.…

Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD), California's thirteenth largest school district, faces a looming deficit and must make significant budget adjustments to avoid state intervention. This case study explores how the district reached this point, how its finances compare with other districts in Sacramento County, and what the…

Our 31st annual report analyzing data from southeast Wisconsin's public school districts finds that while 68 of the 92 school districts are exceeding or significantly exceeding expectations on our new state report cards, there are large achievement gaps across the region on state assessments for low-income students and students of color. Key…