A good friend of mine was a leading voice in South Korean education policy. He served a stint as president of one of Korea’s most prestigious national universities. More than once he shared with me the difficulties he faced as Korea’s declining population—driven by one of the world’s lowest birth rates—reshaped the country’s education system.
As the number of children fell, Korea first closed many elementary schools. A few years later came middle schools, then high schools. Inevitably, this “demographic cliff” reached universities. One of my friend’s biggest challenges was dealing with his school of education, where a large tenured faculty was training large cohorts of teachers to teach a shrinking number of students.
I was recently reminded of my Korean friend’s experience when looking at demographic data from the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, which produces official Virginia population estimates.
Consider the change in the number of children between 2020 and 2025, displayed in the figure. At nearly every age level, each cohort is smaller in 2025 than the corresponding cohort was five years earlier. Of the three exceptions, two represent the oldest students, who by definition are aging out of the K–12 system. According to the Cooper Center, 2026 is the year enrollment decline becomes universal across every grade.
Source: United States Census Bureau.
One would expect Virginia to adapt to this demographic decline by closing schools. And yet, Virginia continues to do the opposite. According to the Elementary and Secondary Information System, run by the National Center for Education Statistics, Virginia added four schools between the 2019–20 school year and the 2024–25 school year.
The relationship between the number of schools and local population levels is complicated. Schools are expensive, long-lived buildings. They often remain standing long after the community it serves has shrunk. And closing schools is one of the most difficult political processes imaginable. (See the long and bloody history of school closures in Chicago.)
Sooner or later, though, a day of reckoning will arrive—most visibly in large urban and suburban school districts. Consider enrollment and school-count data for five of Virginia’s largest districts (called “divisions” in Virginia) over the past five years:
| School Division | Enrollment 2019-2020 | Enrollment 2024-25 | Change in enrollment | % Change | Schools 2019-2020 | Schools 2024-25 | Change in number of schools |
| Fairfax County | 188,887 | 179,323 | -9,564 | -5% | 221 | 223 | +2 |
| Virginia Beach City | 28,650 | 25,882 | -2,768 | -10% | 87 | 88 | +1 |
| Richmond City | 68,706 | 64,731 | -3,975 | -6% | 57 | 54 | -3 |
| Norfolk City | 25,211 | 20,962 | -4,249 | -17% | 49 | 51 | +2 |
| Newport News City | 29,837 | 26,807 | -3,030 | -10% | 43 | 45 | +2 |
Source: Elementary and Secondary Information System
Every one of these districts is experiencing enrollment declines. Yet four of these districts added schools despite a shrinking school-going population. Richmond Public Schools, to its credit, did cut three schools, a 5 percent reduction. Harder choices are likely still ahead.
Fairfax County, an exceptionally wealthy jurisdiction, has seen its public school enrollment decline despite a growing overall population. Part of the gap is explained by private school enrollment: Census data suggest somewhere between 12 and 18 percent of Fairfax’s school-age children attend private school, a percentage that increased during the COVID shutdowns. Significant private school enrollments could extend beyond the richest school districts if Virginia adopts education savings accounts.
Staffing patterns offer a window into local school politics. In 2020, Fairfax County Public Schools employed 24,221 positions; in its approved 2027 budget, that figure had grown to 25,626—an increase of around 6 percent. But the number of school administrators grew almost twice as fast (11 percent). Other districts have made staffing choices that seem harder to square with their demographic reality. Richmond Public Schools, for instance, added 177 positions even as enrollment fell since 2020—though to be fair, most of that growth (around 100) went to classroom instruction.
Reversing demographic decline is very difficult. Furthermore, it literally takes years to produce a cohort of school-age children. In the meantime, school divisions keep spending more money on smaller cohorts of students. This benefits teachers and their unions, but Virginia taxpayers are on the losing end of the bargain.
Virginia school districts may be reprising Wile E. Coyote, who discovers that gravity cannot be ignored. Just as the coyote doesn’t fall until he’s already run past the edge of the cliff, school districts may not feel the full force of the demographic cliff until they’ve gone over the edge.