After relatively flat enrollment through the end of the 2000s, public K-12 enrollment started to tick up again in 2014, according to the federal government’s latest Digest of Education Statistics.
In it, the National Center for Education Statistics predicts total K-12 enrollment will continue to grow from 55 million students today to an all-time high of 57.9 million by 2024, with secondary school enrollment rising 3 percent in that period.
“The elementary enrollments have been primarily about demographics,” because more children overall are being born and 99 percent of children in the age group for elementary grades are enrolled, said Tom Snyder, the NCES program director for annual reports like the digest. “But in terms of high school, we’ve had increased graduation rates, so more young people are remaining in school longer, too.”
The rate of 16- to 24-year-olds who had not completed high school and were not in school dropped from 12.1 percent in 1990 to 6.8 percent in 2013.
