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Issue Brief:
The Impact of the Baby Boom Echo on U.S. Public School Enrollments
October 1997
(NCES 98-039) Ordering information
The children of the Baby Boom generation have set off a population explosion in the nation's public schools. This dramatic enrollment growth, known as the Baby Boom echo, began in the nation's elementary schools in 1984, and elementary enrollment has increased annually since then. At the secondary level, annual enrollment increases began in 1991 and are expected to continue through the year 2007. Combined public and private high school enrollment is expected to reach 16.4 million by the year 2007, a 13 percent increase from 1997.
National Enrollment Trends
After reaching a peak of 51.3 million students in the fall of 1971, total enrollment in elementary and secondary public and private schools in the United States declined annually through the 1984-85 school year. The current enrollment upturn began in fall 1985 and is expected to continue through the year 2006. Total enrollment in elementary and secondary public and private schools is projected to reach 52.2 million in the 1997 school year, the highest in U.S. history.By the year 2006, total enrollment is expected to swell to 54.4 million (enrollment in the year 2007 is projected to decline slightly, to 54.3 million). However, enrollment growth in the next 10 years is not projected to be as fast as the 1987-97 rate. Whereas high school enrollment is expected to increase steadily from fall 1997 to fall 2007, elementary enrollment over that time period is expected to rise slightly and then return to 1997 levels.
The primary reason for the timing and rate of the enrollment increase is the rising number of annual births since 1977, which is referred to as the Baby Boom echo. Other key reasons include: a higher birth rate among Hispanics and other minorities; increases in immigration, particularly in point-of-entry cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Miami; a greater number of children enrolled in pre-K and kindergarten; and a larger share of young people remaining in high school to receive their diplomas. Since 1984, these factors have combined to produce large enrollment increases in some of the fastest-growing areas of the country. For example, table 1 shows individual school districts that experienced the greatest increases in enrollment from 1984 to 1994.
Table 1. Ten public districts with the largest enrollment increases: Fall 1984 to fall 1994
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Enrollment Percent
Enrollment increase change
------------------- ---------- ---------
District State 1984 1994 1984–94 1984–94
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New York City NY 923,100 1,022,534 99,434 10.8
Dade County School District FL 231,277 321,615 90,338 39.1
Los Angeles Unified CA 546,990 632,973 85,983 15.7
Broward County School District FL 127,474 199,255 71,781 56.3
Clark County School District NV 89,627 156,348 66,721 74.4
Palm Beach County School District FL 78,374 127,519 49,145 62.7
Orange County School District FL 78,624 118,666 40,042 50.9
Gwinnett County School District GA 41,096 80,220 39,124 95.2
Montgomery County Public Schools MD 88,811 117,082 28,271 31.8
Mesa Unified School District AZ 41,746 69,160 27,414 65.7
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NOTE: Some changes may be affected by school district boundary changes.SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data surveys; and Projections of Education Statistics to 2006.
Impact on Regions, States, and Districts
The increases in U.S. enrollment are not spread equally across all areas of the country, and there is a distinct regional pattern to the effects of the Baby Boom echo. From 1997 to 2007, enrollments are expected to increase in all but one Western state and in most states in the South, but enrollments are expected to decrease in five of nine Northeastern states and in 10 of 12 Midwest states (table 2). In all, enrollments are expected to hold steady or increase in 30 states and decline in 20 states and the District of Columbia.
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Projected Percent change
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Region and state 1987 1997 2002 2007 1987 to 1997 1997 to 2000 1987 to 2007
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Total enrollment 45,488 52,2 53,962 54,324 14.8 4.0 19.4
Private 5,479 5,86 6,051 6,061 7.0 3.4 10.6
Public 40,008 46,3 47,911 48,262 15.9 4.1 20.6
Northeast 7,252 8,15 8,283 8,143 12.4 -0.1 12.3
Connecticut 465 537 531 511 15.5 -4.8 9.9
Maine 212 214 203 197 0.9 -7.9 -7.1
Massachusetts 825 947 987 974 14.8 2.9 18.1
New Hampshire 166 201 203 199 21.1 -1.0 19.9
New Jersey 1,093 1,24 1,290 1,280 14.2 2.6 17.1
New York 2,594 2,90 2,985 2,965 11.9 2.2 14.3
Pennsylvania 1,669 1,83 1,817 1,754 10.1 -4.6 5.1
Rhode Island 135 156 159 158 15.6 1.3 17.0
Vermont 93 108 108 106 16.1 -1.9 14.0
Midwest 9,870 10,6 10,588 10,397 7.8 -2.3 5.3
Illinois 1,811 1,98 2,022 2,010 9.8 1.1 11.0
Indiana 964 989 1,020 1,023 2.6 3.4 6.1
Iowa 481 501 480 467 4.2 -6.8 -2.9
Kansas 421 476 473 470 13.1 -1.3 11.6
Michigan 1,589 1,65 1,637 1,596 4.2 -3.6 0.4
Minnesota 721 847 827 798 17.5 -5.8 10.7
Missouri 802 902 905 893 12.5 -1.0 11.3
Nebraska 268 290 288 286 8.2 -1.4 6.7
North Dakota 119 117 113 111 -1.7 -5.1 -6.7
Ohio 1,793 1,84 1,817 1,772 2.6 -3.7 -1.2
South Dakota 127 147 143 140 15.7 -4.8 10.2
Wisconsin 772 890 864 831 15.3 -6.6 7.6
South 14,419 16,6 17,393 17,543 15.5 5.4 21.7
Alabama 729 748 779 789 2.6 5.5 8.2
Arkansas 437 458 464 458 4.8 0.0 4.8
Delaware 96 114 121 120 18.8 5.3 25.0
District of Columbia 86 82 78 76 -4.7 -7.3 -11.6
Florida 1,665 2,30 2,396 2,372 38.1 3.1 42.5
Georgia 1,111 1,35 1,471 1,502 22.2 10.6 35.2
Kentucky 643 661 660 648 2.8 -2.0 0.8
Louisiana 793 810 791 783 2.1 -3.3 -1.3
Maryland 684 840 868 867 22.8 3.2 26.8
Mississippi 506 512 525 527 1.2 2.9 4.2
North Carolina 1,086 1,24 1,341 1,332 14.2 7.4 22.7
Oklahoma 584 621 603 593 6.3 -4.5 1.5
South Carolina 615 665 688 694 8.1 4.4 12.8
Tennessee 824 923 978 984 12.0 6.6 19.4
Texas 3,237 3,90 4,156 4,314 20.5 10.6 33.3
Virginia 979 1,11 1,182 1,198 13.9 7.4 22.4
West Virginia 344 302 291 285 -12.2 -5.6 -17.2
West 8,468 10,9 11,646 12,179 28.8 11.6 43.8
Alaska 106 133 138 145 25.5 9.0 36.8
Arizona 572 832 914 922 45.5 10.8 61.2
California 4,489 5,86 6,337 6,780 30.5 15.7 51.0
Colorado 560 684 722 727 22.1 6.3 29.8
Hawaii 166 204 214 228 22.9 11.8 37.3
Idaho 212 255 275 283 20.3 11.0 33.5
Montana 152 169 167 165 11.2 -2.4 8.6
Nevada 168 295 330 321 75.6 8.8 91.1
New Mexico 287 352 372 393 22.6 11.6 36.9
Oregon 456 544 550 549 19.3 0.9 20.4
Utah 423 488 519 543 15.4 11.3 28.4
Washington 776 993 1,009 1,019 28.0 2.6 31.3
Wyoming 98 100 100 105 2.0 5.0 7.1
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SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data surveys; and Projections of
Education Statistics to 2007.Over the next decade, student enrollment is expected to increase by 16 percent in California, making it the fastest-growing state. States that will experience a decline in overall student population include the District of Columbia (by 7 percent), Wisconsin (by 7 percent), Iowa (by 7 percent) and Maine (by 8 percent).
Within states, the rate and timing of the enrollment changes also differ across school districts. In Nevada, overall enrollment is expected to grow by about 15 percent from 1996 to 2001. However, the number of students in Nevada's Clark County School District is projected to increase by about 28 percent from 1996-97 to 2000-01 (179,000 students to 223,000 students). This kind of rapid and uneven growth places additional burdens on state and local education agencies.
How Will the Schools Keep Up?
The number of classroom teachers is expected to increase from 3.1 million in fall 1997 to 3.3 million by the fall of 2007. Overall, total yearly current expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools are projected to increase 22 percent from 1996-97 to 2006-07, from $257 billion to $314 billion (1994-95 dollars).
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For more information about the content of this report, contact Tom Snyder at Tom.Snyder@ed.gov.
