California School Enrollment Decline: Causes and Budget Fallout

California’s public schools lost roughly 75,000 students in the 2025-26 school year, a 1.3% drop that marks the eighth straight year of declining enrollment in California schools and the steepest single-year loss since the pandemic. The decline was driven by falling birth rates, a sharp drop in international migration, fear of federal immigration enforcement, and families leaving high-cost regions. State planners had projected a loss of about 10,000 students; the actual figure came in seven times larger, leaving California with about 5.7 million public school students.¹

How Big the Drop Is

Enrollment fell from 5.8 million in 2024-25 to roughly 5.7 million in 2025-26, a loss of 74,961 students. The California Department of Finance had estimated a decline of only about 0.2% in projections released in October 2025. The actual 1.3% drop was the largest since 2021-22, when pandemic disruptions were still reshaping how families thought about school.¹

The slide is not new. Enrollment peaked at just over 6.3 million in 2004 and has trended down since, with a brief plateau in the late 2010s before the pandemic accelerated the trend. California has lost about 300,000 public school students since 2019-20 alone. Nationally, K-12 enrollment has fallen about 2.3% over the past five years, with federal projections pointing to another 2.7 million students lost by 2031-32.¹

What’s Causing It

Fewer Births

The deepest cause is demographic. California’s birth rate has been declining for years, accelerating after the 2008 recession, and researchers describe a “birth dearth” in which births no longer replace the existing population. Each smaller birth cohort translates into fewer kindergartners about five years later, and state officials consistently cite this as the single most important long-term driver of enrollment loss.²³

A Collapse in Immigration, and Fear of Enforcement

Net international migration to California fell from 312,761 in 2024 to 109,278 in 2025, a drop of roughly two-thirds, according to U.S. Census data. That collapse directly reduces the pipeline of school-age children entering California classrooms.¹

Enforcement is a separate force on top of the raw migration numbers. Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Alberto Carvalho attributed enrollment losses in his district to a “climate of fear and instability created by the ongoing immigration crackdowns,” saying some families had left the state or the country rather than risk encounters with enforcement agents.⁴ H.D. Palmer, deputy director of the California Department of Finance, acknowledged that “a portion of the enrollment loss is driven by current immigration enforcement activities.”¹

Cost of Living Pushing Families Out

Housing costs continue to push families with children out of California or toward its more affordable regions, and the pattern is visible in the data. Higher-cost coastal areas are losing students fastest. Lower-cost counties in Northern California and the Central Valley are among the few places gaining students: San Joaquin added 842, Placer added 841, and Sutter added 802. Elizabeth Sanders of the California Department of Education put it plainly: “We’re seeing a direct correlation between economies that are livable for families and where students are enrolling in school.”¹

Greater Los Angeles saw a 15% enrollment decline over the prior decade and is projected to lose another 19% by the early 2030s. The Bay Area has lost 8% over the past ten years and is projected to lose 14% by 2033, outpacing the statewide projected decline of 12%. States with lower costs of living, like Florida and Texas, are seeing projected growth that roughly mirrors the outflow from California.⁵³

Private Schools and Homeschooling Are a Small Piece

The shift to private schools and homeschooling accounts for a real but modest portion of the loss. Between 2019-20 and 2022-23, about 12% of the total loss in public school enrollment came from families switching to private schools or homeschools. Homeschool enrollment jumped from 39,000 to 59,000 in the first pandemic year but has since moderated.⁶ For 2025-26, private school enrollment fell 6.6% and homeschool enrollment dropped 3.7%, suggesting the latest wave of decline is not about families picking alternatives but about fewer children being in California at all.¹

Where the Losses Are Concentrated

Los Angeles County alone accounts for 43% of the state’s total enrollment loss, shedding nearly 33,000 students in a single year. Hispanic student enrollment dropped by 48,064 (a 1.48% decrease), white student enrollment fell by 31,076 (2.68%), and the number of English learners declined by 8.2%.¹

Counties with higher shares of English learners and of Black, Latino, and Asian students are consistently losing more students. Counties in the highest quartile of English learner enrollment are projected to see a 13% decline over the next decade, while counties with the smallest shares of English learners are projected to see slight growth.³

Black students have been disproportionately affected both by the enrollment slide itself and by the school closures that follow. Black student enrollment in California fell 47% between 2003 and 2023, from 510,000 to about 273,000. Though Black students make up 5% of the total student population, they accounted for nearly 14% of students in schools that closed between 2012 and 2021. After controlling for achievement, poverty, charter status, and enrollment trends, the odds of a school closing increase by nearly 25% for every 10-percentage-point rise in the share of Black students.⁷

LAUSD as the Clearest Case

LAUSD, the state’s largest district, shows how immigration enforcement compounds demographic pressure. Enrollment fell about 4% in 2025-26, to 392,654 students, a drop of roughly 16,400 from the prior year and about 7,000 worse than the district’s own projections.⁸⁹

Enrollment among “newcomer” students (non-U.S.-born English learners who have attended American schools for three years or fewer) dropped particularly sharply. Of 18,232 newcomers expected back in fall 2025, only 16,668 returned, a shortfall of about 8.5%. Reports from South Los Angeles described ICE activity near schools, and the district said Department of Homeland Security officers had attempted to enter elementary schools under false pretenses.¹⁰⁹ LAUSD responded with attendance counselors doing welfare checks and home visits, a hotline, a “know-your-rights” website, and in some cases buses picking up students at home. At 93rd Street Elementary, hiring two attendance counselors helped raise enrollment from about 480 in August to 740 by October.⁸

Since 2002-03, LAUSD has lost more than 316,000 students, a decrease of about 40%. The district loses roughly $60 million in state revenue for every one-percentage-point drop in average daily attendance.¹¹

Closures, Equity Complaints, and Layoffs

When students disappear, districts eventually close or consolidate schools, and those decisions are among the most contentious in local governance. Between 2012 and 2021, nearly 700 California schools closed, displacing roughly 167,000 students.⁷

San Jose Unified approved the closure of five elementary schools in March 2026 under its “Schools of Tomorrow” plan, after losing 20% of its enrollment (about 6,000 students) since 2017. All five schools (Lowell, Canoas, Terrell, Empire Gardens, and Gardner) are Title I schools serving predominantly low-income populations. Between 72% and 91% of students at four of the targeted schools identified as Hispanic or Latino, compared with a districtwide average of 55.2%. Parents filed a complaint alleging the closures disproportionately affect low-income students and students of color and calling the process “procedurally deficient” and “rushed.”¹²

San Francisco Unified faces a $400 million budget deficit over three years and identified 13 schools for closure or merger for 2025-26 after losing 4,000 students over the prior seven years.¹³ The district acknowledged that its initial closure process lacked “clarity, transparency, and community engagement” and has pushed implementation to 2027-28.¹⁴

Oakland Unified faces a $100 million budget gap for 2026-27 and the threat of a renewed state takeover if it fails to restructure. Earlier rounds of closures in 2019, 2020, and 2022 drew fierce opposition, and a 2022 plan was rescinded after the California Department of Justice concluded it would have disproportionately harmed Black, low-income, and special education students. Seven of the eight elementary schools Oakland closed since 2012 had served student populations with disproportionately high shares of Black students.¹⁵¹⁶

Staffing has also been hit. Ahead of 2025-26, 1,246 certificated staff members were laid off across 92 California school districts, including teachers, nurses, counselors, psychologists, and librarians. The California Teachers Association pointed to both declining enrollment and the expiration of federal pandemic relief funds (ESSER), which had temporarily let districts hire additional staff.¹⁷ Santa Ana Unified laid off 262 staff members. Pajaro Valley Unified moved to eliminate 160 full-time positions. Monterey County’s 24 school districts collectively reported a combined $107.4 million deficit for the current school year.¹⁸

Why the Budget Hit Is So Hard

California funds its schools primarily through the Local Control Funding Formula, which allocates money based on average daily attendance rather than enrollment. When attendance drops, revenue drops with it; when enrollment drops permanently, the revenue loss is structural. California is one of only five states that ties school funding to attendance rather than enrollment.¹⁹

The state offers a one-year “declining enrollment adjustment” that lets districts use prior-year attendance figures for one year following a decline. California spent $925 million on these adjustments in 2018-19, and that figure has grown as more districts experience losses.²⁰ A three-year rolling average in the LCFF formula further softens the blow by crediting districts with their average attendance over the three prior years if it exceeds the current year.¹⁹

Even with those buffers, districts cannot cut costs as fast as revenue falls. Salaries and benefits are the biggest expense, and layoffs tend to retain more experienced, more expensive teachers. Facilities, maintenance, and debt service do not shrink with enrollment. Many districts end up spending more per remaining student even as their total budgets fall.²⁰

Proposition 98, the state’s constitutional minimum funding guarantee for schools, offers a partial counterweight. As the student population shrinks, the formula shifts to “Test 1,” which sets funding at roughly 38% of the General Fund plus local property taxes regardless of enrollment. The Legislative Analyst’s Office has estimated that could translate into about $100 per student per year in additional funding, a modest gain against the scale of the losses.²¹

Legislative fixes have been limited. Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains introduced AB 1348, which would have added “immigration enforcement activity” to the list of emergencies qualifying districts for funding credits when attendance drops by 10% or more. Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill in October 2025, saying existing law already provides ways for districts to recover lost funding and that the bill lacked safeguards to ensure absent students could study elsewhere.²² SB 98 directed the Legislative Analyst’s Office to study shifting school funding from attendance to enrollment; the LAO’s January 2026 report estimated the switch would cost about $5.7 billion annually for LCFF and $800 million for other programs, and recommended against the change, concluding it would likely have “adverse effects on attendance.”²³

On the equity front, AB 1912, signed in 2022, requires districts in fiscal distress to conduct an equity impact analysis before closing or consolidating schools. Its application has been narrow: it has been formally invoked only in Oakland Unified and Inglewood Unified, the only two districts meeting the “fiscal distress” trigger. In April 2023, Attorney General Rob Bonta issued guidance emphasizing that closure decisions must comply with federal and state civil rights laws.²⁴²⁵

What Could Slow the Decline, and What Comes Next

One bright spot is transitional kindergarten, which California has been expanding to cover all 4-year-olds. TK enrollment grew 20.1% in 2025-26 and now accounts for 3.72% of all state enrollment, serving about half the state’s 4-year-olds. Without TK, the overall enrollment decline since 2012-13 would have been 11.39% instead of 7.96%; for 2025-26 specifically, the decline would have been 1.97% rather than 1.29%.²⁶ The program adds students at the front end of the pipeline but does nothing to change the underlying demographics.

The long-range outlook is for continued decline. The California Department of Finance projects enrollment will fall below 5.2 million by 2032 and under 5 million by the late 2030s, with declines persisting every year through at least 2044-45. Federal projections from the National Center for Education Statistics are more pessimistic, suggesting California could fall below 5 million students by 2031. If those projections hold, the state’s student population will have shrunk 15 to 20% from its pre-pandemic levels.³

Nearly three-quarters of California school districts have already seen enrollment declines over the past five years, and only the Sierra and Northern Central Valley regions are projected to grow. For a system built around the assumption of a large and growing student population, the challenge ahead is structural as much as fiscal: how to maintain quality, equitable access, and neighborhood schools with fewer students, fewer dollars, and the political difficulty of deciding which schools to keep open.

1
EdSource. Declining School Enrollment California
2
EdSurge. Lower Birth Rates Could Cause Enrollment Issues for Schools
3
Public Policy Institute of California. Factors and Future Projections for K-12 Declining Enrollment
4
ABC7 News. California Public School Enrollment Drops 75K Students
5
Getting Down to Facts. Bay Area School Enrollment Plunges as Families Flee High-Cost Region
6
Public Policy Institute of California. Private Schooling Played a Small Role in Declining Public School Enrollment
7
Getting Down to Facts. Declining Enrollment, School Closures, and Equity Considerations
8
LA Public Press. LA School Enrollment, ICE, and Immigrant Kids
9
K-12 Dive. Districts Report Enrollment Drops Amid Immigration Raids
10
Los Angeles Times. School Enrollment Plummets in LAUSD Amid Immigration Raids
11
The 74. Enrollment Is Falling – California Leaders Must Ensure Students Don’t Lose Out
12
KQED. Alleging Discrimination, San Jose Parents Try to Fight School Closures
13
ABC7 News. SFUSD Set to Release List of Schools That Meet Criteria for Closure or Merger
14
San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education. Strong Schools Resolution
15
Oakland Attorney General Letter. Letter to Oakland Unified Re Potential Closures
16
The Oaklandside. OUSD Oakland Budget Cuts and School Site Staff
17
K-12 Dive. Over 1,200 California K-12 Staff Laid Off So Far Before the New School Year
18
Monterey County Now. As Enrollment Declines, Local Schools Are Slashing Budgets and Laying Off Staff
19
Legislative Analyst’s Office. Assessing a Shift to Enrollment-Based School Funding
20
Public Policy Institute of California. Declining Enrollment in California Schools – Fiscal Challenges and Opportunities
21
Public Policy Institute of California. Declining Enrollment in California Schools – Fiscal Challenges and Opportunities
22
Politico Pro. Newsom Vetoes Bill Helping Schools That Lose Students to Immigration Raids
23
Legislative Analyst’s Office. Assessing a Shift to Enrollment-Based School Funding
24
California Department of Education. School Closure Resources
25
The Oaklandside. Attorney General, Oakland School Closures, and AB 1912
26
EdSource. California Transitional Kindergarten Quality