Schools face steepest enrollment drops since 1930s
Federal data shows a 1.5 million student decline since 2019, driven by falling birth rates and a sharp reduction in the foreign-born population.
By Alina Campbell ·
Public school enrollment in the United States has fallen by approximately 1.5 million students since 2019, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education. The decline follows a peak in student numbers during the 2019 school year and reflects a simultaneous drop in domestic birth rates and a reduction in immigration levels. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that the population of children under 18 dropped by roughly 2.1 million between 2010 and 2025.
The trend has accelerated in recent months due to federal immigration enforcement actions. A study by the Migration Policy Institute determined that as many as 1.9 million individuals left the country during the first 18 months of the current administration. Federal officials recently weakened restrictions that previously limited ICE operations near educational facilities, leading to increased uncertainty among families in high-immigration communities.
In Los Angeles, the impact has been measurable. Kelly Gonez, a board member for the Los Angeles Unified School District, stated that the district lost more than 300,000 students over the past two decades. She noted that while officials anticipated a 2 percent drop in enrollment for the current year, the actual decline was double that figure. Guadalupe Cardona, a teacher at Santee Education Complex in South Los Angeles, reported that over 200 students did not attend school on the first day of the term. She attributed the absence to families relocating or hiding after an ICE agent opened fire near the campus in October 2025.
Other states report similar losses. Texas saw its public school population decrease by more than 76,000 students last year, with the majority of the drop occurring among Hispanic students and children of immigrant families. In Florida, Miami-Dade and Broward County districts combined lost roughly 30,000 children in a single year following the removal of temporary protected status for Haitian refugees. A June report by education think tanks Bellwether and WestEd predicted a loss of $11 billion annually in public school funding linked to these enrollment declines across 40 states.
Thomas Dee, an economist at Stanford University, described the current situation as unique since the Great Depression, with both low birth rates and low immigration levels occurring simultaneously. He noted that daily absences in California communities affected by ICE raids spiked by more than 20 percent in 2025. The White House welcomed the demographic shift, with spokeswoman Lauren Bis stating that deportations make American classrooms less crowded. Administration officials cited a 2.9 million decline in the foreign-born population from January 2025 to July 2026.
Researchers estimate that up to 4.6 million school-age children, including U.S. citizens, live in households with members vulnerable to deportation. In Los Angeles, the school district announced a citywide review in September to identify campuses for closure. Gonez stated that the district faces a second consecutive year with 4 percent enrollment declines, making it difficult to maintain a sustainable number of open schools.
State officials in California project that public schools in the state could lose another 710,000 students over the next decade if current trends in fertility and migration continue. ICE currently arrests as many as 50,000 people each month, a rate that coincides with record-low birth rates nationwide.
