A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The number of children in U.S. public schools is falling. By the end of the decade, enrollment will be down by millions. Education experts say lower birth rates over the last two decades are the big factor. President Trump's immigration crackdown is also taking a toll. NPR's Brian Mann is covering this. Brian, so how many millions are we talking about?
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Well, it's a lot. Public schools now have been losing kids for years. Forty states have seen declines. And the U.S. Education Department projects that by 2030 - that's just a few years from now - the drop could reach 4 million children. And while this is happening in most of the U.S., some districts are being hit much harder. The Los Angeles Unified School District, A, has lost half its kids over the last 20 years. And superintendent Andres Chait announced this fall that he's launching a citywide program aimed at closing schools.
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ANDRES CHAIT: It is a simple if painful reality that we used to have 700,000 students, and now we have fewer than 400,000.
MANN: And public school enrollment nationwide is expected to keep falling. Officials in California say their state alone will lose another 700,000 public school students over the next decade.
MARTÍNEZ: Wow. Now, we mentioned some of the factors that go into this. Break that all down for us.
MANN: Yeah, so what most researchers say is that it's a one-two punch here caused first by low birth rates, and then now by Trump's immigration crackdown. There are roughly 700,000 fewer babies born every year in the U.S. That's compared with 20 years ago. So that's a lot fewer kids turning up for kindergarten. Until last year, in much of the country, that trend was offset at least partially by immigrants coming into the U.S. A lot of them put their kids in public schools. Now, at least in the short term, a lot of those students are suddenly vanishing.
MARTÍNEZ: Vanishing. What does that mean, vanishing?
MANN: Well, let's take LA again. After Trump's immigration crackdown began there last year, LA Unified School District officials say their enrollment decline got a lot worse. They lost twice as many kids as they expected. Texas also lost roughly 76,000 public school kids statewide in 2025. It's only the second drop in the state's modern school history. A study by state officials there found most of those losses came among Hispanic families and among the children of immigrants.
More big enrollment drops this year in some of Florida's school districts. The Trump administration there, of course, stripped a lot of Haitian immigrants of their temporary protected status. I spoke about all this with Thomas Dee. He's an economist who studies population and education trends at Stanford University. He thinks what Trump is doing will take a bigger and bigger toll on school districts.
THOMAS DEE: So it's really the effects of both an exodus of existing families and also stopping the inflow that would've normally occurred.
MANN: And here's an important thing. Because public school funding is typically tied to enrollment, these losses could cripple some public schools. Two education think tanks, Bellwether and WestEd, released a study this summer showing the budget impacts of all this could top $11 billion a year.
MARTÍNEZ: What has the Trump administration said about the impact of its immigration policy on schools?
MANN: Yeah, we asked the White House repeatedly for an interview. They haven't responded. In public statements, the Trump administration, A, has celebrated the fact that there are millions fewer foreign residents. That means legal and undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. Trump has described curbing immigration as one of the big policy wins of his second term. But with U.S. birth rates also falling - they hit a new record low last year - that means school districts around the country have to plan for a future with fewer children.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. That's NPR's Brian Mann. Brian, thanks.
MANN: Thank you.
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