Archived -- A Back to School Special Report on the Baby Boom Echo: Growing Pains (August 20, 2000)

A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

A Back to School Special Report on the Baby Boom Echo: Growing Pains (August 21, 2000)

Highlights from The Baby Boom Echo:
Growing Pains

New records--

Total public and private school enrollment has continued to rise, from 52.8 million in 1999 to a projected 53.0 million in fall 2000.
Total college enrollment will rise to a record 15.1 million in fall 2000.

Between 1989 and 2009--

Public and private elementary school enrollment will have risen by 4.2 million, secondary school enrollment by 2.4 million, and college enrollment by 1.3 million.
Public high school enrollment is expected to have increased by 19 percent, while elementary school enrollment is projected to have increased by 12 percent.
Full-time college enrollment is projected to have risen by 11 percent.

Between 1999 and 2009--

Public high school enrollment is expected to increase by nearly 9 percent, while elementary enrollment is projected to decrease by less than one percent.
The number of public high school graduates will increase by 16 percent.
Fifteen states will have at least a 15 percent increase in the number of public high school graduates, with a 77 percent increase projected for Nevada, 56 percent for Arizona, and 40 percent for North Carolina.
The total number of public and private high school teachers is expected to rise by 75,000--a 6 percent increase; a total of 2.2 million public elementary and secondary school teachers will be needed over the period to accommodate the new students and replace those teachers who retire or leave the profession for other reasons.
Full-time college enrollment is projected to rise by 14 percent.

Beyond 2010--

After a period of relative stability between 2000 and 2010, the number of births is expected to start a new pattern of steady increases-a century-long growth, rising from 4.2 million in 2010 to 4.9 million in 2030, with continuing increases in subsequent years.
After remaining relatively stable between 2000 and 2010, the number of school-age children is expected to increase steadily for the foreseeable future. The number will rise by 6 percent between 2010 and 2020, reaching 94 million in 2100, about 42 million more children than in 2000.

Projections of education statistics are revised every year by the National Center for Education Statistics to reflect the latest information on actual school enrollments and other demographic and economic information. For example, the projection for total elementary and secondary school enrollment for fall 1999 was 53.2 million in Projections of Education Statistics to 2009. More recently reported information resulted in lowering this estimate to 52.8 million in the new Projections of Education Statistics to 2010 edition. As another point of comparison, the 2005 projection for total elementary and secondary school enrollment is 1.9 percent lower in the Projections of Education Statistics to 2010 than in the previous edition, while the college and university projections are 3.3 percent higher.

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