Tucson Unified School District may be facing an accelerated rate of declining student enrollment, as falling birth rates, an aging population and the rise of alternative education options, including universal vouchers, reshape the landscape of K–12 education in Pima County.

Tucson Unified School District officials were briefed on the situation during last week’s governing board meeting.

“We’re in times that I have not seen before,” said Rick Brammer, demographer at the Arizona Center for Applied Economics LLC.

Arizona Center for Applied Economics is a consulting firm that has worked with 70 different school districts across the state over the past 30 years to help determine enrollment projections.

By collecting data on enrollment and birth rates, the firm found that between the decrease in birth rates and an increase in alternative education choices — private schools, tuition-free charter schools and homeschooling — fewer K–12-aged children are attending traditional public schools.

Nationally, the rate of people under the age of 18 has been unchanged since 2010, even though the population has grown by nearly 900,000 people.

“This is a major departure from where we’ve been from the past,” Brammer said.

Additionally, the Great Recession and women choosing to have children later in life have caused not only birth rates to decrease, but also gaps and changes to the population curve.

“So all of a sudden, we’re not having kids in our 20s, a lot of us were having them in our early 30s,” he said. “The later you will have your first child, the fewer children you will have total.”

At the state level, Arizona is usually above the national average for birth rates. Now, due to immigration policies and other factors, those rates have been declining. In Pima County, birth rates have fallen by 36% since 2006, according to Brammer.

Lower birth rates also affect overall enrollment in the long run. Brammer said that curves typically follow each other. For example, if enrollment in recent years was lower for sixth through eighth grade, high schools are now seeing those dips.

Also impacting public school enrollment are Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, which let parents use state funding to pay for educational needs for their children.

ESAs, also called universal vouchers, are administered by the Arizona Department of Education and were previously available to children with disabilities, in foster care or from military families. In 2022, the program was expanded to all kids in K–12 schools.

The funding can be used to pay for tuition at private schools, educational supplies, tutoring and many other educational needs. Since this change, Arizona has spent around $800 million on the program.

But ESA growth is expected to slow, according to Brammer.

“We’re seeing the first signs of saturation there,” he said.

Statewide, private and charter schools make up 29% of total enrollment.

Arizona is still expected to grow by about 37% in the next 30 years, with most of the growth happening in Maricopa and Pinal counties.

That’s  the reason for Brammer’s other concern about decreasing enrollment. With local and state officials scrambling to create enough affordable housing options to meet the growing demand, it remains to be seen where Pima County’s growing population will live.

“I worry that housing is going to have economic development impacts going down the road,” he said. “We’re essentially just taking the same size pie and cutting it into more pieces.”

Arilynn Hyatt is a journalism major at the University of Arizona and Tucson Spotlight intern. Contact her at arilynndhyatt@arizona.edu.

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