Current trends in disaffiliation and declining enrollment in Catholic schools raise difficult questions about the perceived value of Catholic education and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition (CIT). Following the work of theologian David Tracy, the author makes a case for engagement with Christian "classics" as a promising means not only…

Introduction: Just over one year ago, in the spring of 2020, a pandemic of unimaginable proportion began wreaking havoc across the globe. As health concerns escalated, businesses shuttered, stock markets tumbled, and education was forced to transform at warp-speed from traditional in-person instructional models to virtual instruction. At nearly…

The U.S. Department of Education has projected enrollment declines over the next decade, leading to budget cuts for school districts, which will be particularly impactful in urban and rural areas serving vulnerable students. As federal COVID-19 funds expire, districts will face challenges in cutting costs, potentially leading to layoffs or school…

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…

We analyze a natural experiment in which policymakers in Pennsylvania first implemented, and later removed, reimbursements to districts for students exiting to brick and mortar and cyber charter schools. Generalized difference-in-difference models show that larger shares of students enrolling in charter schools predict decrements in spending,…

In a world where English has achieved global dominance, it is unsurprising that the instrumental value of learning a language other than English (LOTE) for those already fluent in English is increasingly deemed unnecessary. There are significant enrollment declines postcompulsory second language (L2) learning in all English-speaking countries. To…

This fact sheet reports on distributed learning (DL), which is a method of teaching students outside of traditional schools using online and other electronic-based delivery methods. Two charts are presented to show that DL programs in public schools has dropped greatly, but student enrollment in DL programs in independent schools has skyrocketed.

The next decade may present continuous, dramatic and transformational change in higher education. New paradigms and educational delivery systems may become commonplace. New federal legislation may dictate admission practices, tuition increases, and mandates for standard retention and graduation rates. The ethnic and socioeconomic makeup of…

Since 1990, over 40% of schools have closed in the St. Louis Public Schools District (SLPSD) because of steep enrollment decline. Tracing educational trends over 30 years, I examine when, where, and why K-12 public schools closed in St. Louis in order to highlight the social conditions and policy decisions that contract contemporary urban…

Learning a world language offers many benefits, including positive impacts on cognitive development, memory skills, and problem-solving abilities. However, enrollments in language programs, including French, are declining in American universities. Due to the high cost of college, students and parents may not see French as a lucrative field of…

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…

Catholic schools have had a remarkable impact on education in the U.S., especially serving minority students in vulnerable communities. Unfortunately, there has been a significant decline in Catholic school enrollment beginning in the 1960s. In addition, the number of Catholic schools has steadily declined since the 1970s. This qualitative…

Jesuit universities provide a means of preparing students to advocate for social justice and the common good through an educational method known as Ignatian pedagogy. Rooted in the "Spiritual Exercises" of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Ignatian pedagogy is a teaching practice rich in content imbued with Jesuit values. It is meant to be a…

Nearly all states in the United States (45) currently have a postsecondary attainment goal to improve the average education levels of their residents and develop a highly-educated workforce. During a time of accelerated COVID-19 related postsecondary enrollment declines, the question as to how states will meet these goals could be particularly…

Public school enrollment dramatically decreased during the pandemic, but the patterns of decline and student movement across schools are not yet well understood. Using statewide student-level data from Virginia, we find pre-K-12 enrollment dropped by 4% between fall 2019 and the first post-pandemic fall of 2020. The changes were the largest in…