Where the students were, and where they will be — counted back to 1899, projected to 2055.
Public school enrolment counted from 1899 to 2024, then projected to 2055. It stood at 15,503,110 students in 1899, peaked at 50,796,445 in 2019, and was 49,387,403 in 2024.
Students in grades 1–12, counted from 1965 to 2026, then projected to 2050 from children who are already born and, past 2032, from the birth rate the register shows today.
Counted figures come from the sources listed under each map; the projected ones are this page’s own model, not an official forecast. Every figure here is read from the same data the map draws, so the two cannot disagree.