Projections of Education Statistics to 2030

Projections of Education Statistics to 2030 is the 48th report in a series begun in 1964. It presents statistics on elementary and secondary schools and degree-granting postsecondary institutions, including projections of enrollment, graduates, teachers, and expenditures to the year 2030. This report provides revisions of projections shown in Projections of Education Statistics to 2028, as well as the Digest of Education Statistics 2019 and 2020, which included projections through 2029. A formal report on the projections to 2029 was never published, because these projections were produced just prior to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, which had immediate implications for the landscape of education in the United States.

While the current edition cannot forecast unprecedented changes in educational behaviors, it does incorporate more current data from the pandemic period. At the time these forecasts were produced, the latest historical data for public elementary and secondary enrollments were from fall 2020 (during the pandemic), while the latest historical data for other outcomes were from fall 2019 or earlier (prepandemic). By the time of this report publication, new historical data will be available for all of the education statistics presented in this report. These new historical data represent an additional year of education during the pandemic, which will be incorporated into the forthcoming Projections of Education Statistics to 2031.

In addition to projections at the national level, the report includes projections of public elementary and secondary school enrollment and public high school graduates to the year 2030 at the state level. The projections in this report were produced by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to provide researchers, policy analysts, and others with state-level projections developed using a consistent methodology. They are not intended to supplant detailed projections prepared for individual states.

Assumptions regarding the population and the economy are the key factors underlying the projections of education statistics. NCES projections do not reflect changes in national, state, or local education policies that may affect education statistics.

Appendix A of this report outlines the projection methodology and describes the models and assumptions used to develop the national and state projections. The enrollment models use enrollment data and population estimates and projections from NCES, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the forecasting service S&P Global Inc. The models are based on the mathematical projection of past data patterns into the future. Some models also use projections of economic variables from S&P Global Inc.

The projections presented in this report are based on assumptions for the fertility rate, internal migration, net immigration, and mortality rate from the Census Bureau. For further information, see appendix A.

Peggy G. Carr, Commissioner
National Center for Education Statistics