School enrollments during the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of New York

Abstract

This study extends the earlier literature on changes in school enrollment in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic by using data for the second COVID-19 school year (2021–2022) from the state of New York. Contrary to expectations that the resumption of fully-live instruction would reverse the first COVID-19 year's declines in public school enrollment, we find that enrollment continued to drop sharply in the second COVID-19 school year, when schools were entirely back to in-person learning. These declines in enrollment vary substantially by grade, race and poverty and are robust to controlling for other COVID-19 related factors. In addition, we find mixed results for the number of private school students but significant increases in home-schooled students in the two COVID-19 years. The findings have important educational and fiscal implications.