Tennessee public schools see enrollment drop since the pandemic

TENNESSEE, USA — Across the state, fewer students are enrolled in public schools than before the pandemic. Current enrollment in Tennessee public schools is 4,000 students fewer in 2024 than 2018.

10news spoke to Celeste Carruthers , a professor of Labor Economics at the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee. She researches education policy and trends.

"There was a pretty sharp decline in public school enrollment nationwide of the year after the pandemic," Carruthers said. "East Tennessee school districts kind of followed that pattern, in that enrollment tended to fall that first full school year after the pandemic started, or at least kind of held held steady rather than growing."

She said there could be factors including declining birth rates. While population i