The Decline of Public School Enrollment

Around 56.8 million kids return to school this month to attend grades 1-12, and nearly 6.5 million of them won’t be attending the local public school. In the last few years, private school enrollment has increased for various reasons, but it isn’t an equal increase across the country. Where are the highest levels of private school enrollment?

First, it is important to look at some basic demographics. Overall, school enrollment has increased from 42.5 million in 1990 to 56.8 million in 2023, which is nearly equal to the population growth in general. Additionally, private school enrollment now accounts for 11.2% of the school population, up from just under 10% in 1990. Why are more families choosing private school today than 30 years ago? Some of the reasons stem from religious and cultural beliefs, but social issues post COVID, and poor performance of some public school districts have also driven families to choose private education.

Of course, this is not equally distributed nationwide. Large school districts like San Francisco have over 30% private school enrollment, and the largest 10 school districts nationwide average 16.2% enrolled in private school. The charts below show the school districts with the highest percentages of private school enrollment, the largest school districts in the country and the percentage of their students who attend private school, and major school districts with the greatest change in percentage of students attending private school.

Private school enrolment is still highly related to income, as high income households are much more likely to send their kids to private school. But this is changing, as the relationship has weakened significantly between 1990 and the present, as more middle income families are choosing to send their kids to private school, and increasingly home schooling them. Rich urban families have always chosen private schools, but this is changing as well.

Much of the growth in private schools has been in suburban areas of major cities where private schools and home school groups seem to be popping up everywhere. The maps below of the Washington D.C. area show the growth of non-public school enrolment in the suburbs of Virginia and Maryland.