After decades of consistent growth, California transitional kindergarten (TK) through grade 12 public school enrollment has been declining and is expected to continue to do so for at least the next two decades. This report provides guidance on how districts in California and elsewhere can respond to declining enrollment in ways that strengthen…

In 2000, federally funded public adult education programs provided basic skills training and English language instruction to over 2.6 million students, or about 1.5% of the U.S. adult population. By 2021, enrollment had plummeted to under 900,000, or less than 0.4% of adults. What explains these declines? This policy brief describes the evolution…

Declining student enrollment is leading to a loss of revenue in many California school districts. To address ongoing budget shortfalls, many districts have consolidated or shuttered schools, and others are contemplating doing so. A new report and working paper, summarized in this brief, explore the racial dimensions of school closures and how to…

When public schools across the Empire State open their doors for school year 2019-20, pupil enrollment will be at its lowest level in at least 30 years--continuing a long-term decline that has increasing relevance to Albany's perennial legislative battles over school funding and education policy. Including charter schools and pre-kindergarten…

Postsecondary education leaders are eager for reliable data to strategically plan for the next year through the next decade, and WICHE's projections of high school graduates are among the most relied upon sources. As WICHE has reported several times since the pandemic began, the disruption to student populations was illustrated with the shift of…

The traditional college-age population is shrinking: fewer high school graduates pursue higher education each year, resulting in declining student enrollment at colleges across the country. At the same time, there are now more than 40 million Americans who have stopped out of college with some credit and no credential or degree. By opting out or…

Education is a crucial human right, occupying the fourth spot in the Sustainable Development Goals. Despite efforts by governments and donor agencies, Nigeria's educational expectations have not yielded the desired outcomes. With approximately 10.5 million children out-of-school as of January 2022, Nigeria remains among the nations with the…

This research paper introduces a novel program structure for a Bachelor of Science in Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) aimed at increasing enrollment by offering two career-driven, non-gated tracks. The declining interest in education professions among college students and the resulting deactivation of university PETE programs due to…

The post-great recession period (June of 2009 to February of 2020) was marked by a decline in state funding for higher education that further necessitated institutions to rely on tuition funding. Revenues from tuition are based not only on what institutions charge, but also how many students are charged. This tuition revenue dynamic makes…

The enrollment at specialized schools for the deaf, with dormitories, is declining all around the country. A plethora of challenges serve as catalysts for this decline. If schools cannot have a thriving student population, they may cease to function in their academic capacity, thus losing access to Deaf culture and a highly qualified deaf…

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…

Formal language learning has fallen dramatically in recent years even as the UK has become more diverse. In this report, Megan Bowler from the University of Oxford considers the benefits that learning a language provides and assesses the current state of play in schools and universities. She ends with 10 practical recommendations for rejuvenating…

Studies of charter closure rates typically focus on year-to-year closures. While important for researchers, such studies provide little guidance to families seeking to understand the risk of enrolling their child in a charter school. That is because studies determining how many schools close each year provide no information on how long the school…

Considering the enrollment decline in university teacher preparation programs, this phenomenological study explored the experiences of seven southeastern Wisconsin public high school juniors and seniors, who were interested in a pursuing a teaching degree, but have changed their minds and dismissed their original career path. The purpose of the…

Background/Context: Public two-year and technical colleges have experienced declines in enrollment since the COVID-19 pandemic. While new data from the National Student Clearinghouse show that enrollment is beginning to increase, it is still below pre-pandemic levels and not all areas are experiencing the same levels of rising enrollment. At the…