Catholic Schools See Turnaround in Enrollment
Enrollment in Catholic schools has been steadily declining since a peak of 5.2 million students in the early 1960s. By the 2019-20 school year, enrollment was down to 1.7 million, reported The New York Times in September 2020, following a summer when about 150 schools, or 2 percent of the nation’s total, had closed. But this trend has recently reversed, according to The Economist.
The explanation for the substantial decline in enrollment appears multifaceted: tuition, though modest by private school standards, has climbed substantially on account of the substitution of lay teachers for the dwindling number of nuns and priests who had earned subsistence wages in keeping with their religious vows; along with church attendance, commitment to religious education has slid; charter schools with strict dress codes and disciplinary rules provide the order for which Catholic schools have been noted and at no cost; and the sex-abuse scandals exposed in the early aughts not only undermined confidence in the Catholic Church but also led to massive financial settlements that crippled dioceses across the country and thus precluded continued support of needy schools.
“But this autumn dioceses all over the country are seeing increases in enrolments,” reported The Economist. “The National Catholic Educational Association is still collecting and analysing the latest pupil data, but its preliminary numbers show increases in most dioceses.”
The explanation for this turnaround appears to be the reluctance of public school administrators to open schools amid the pandemic. Leaders of Catholic schools, by contrast, opened their doors. And the extra space in their buildings due to the steady dissipation in enrollment allowed for appropriate social distancing.
“The Brooklyn-Queens diocese in New York, one of the biggest in the country, saw increases for the first time in a decade or more,” reported The Economist. “Nearly 60% of its schools are growing, with many increasing by 10%. Partnership Schools, a network of Catholic schools in New York City and in Cleveland, saw a 16% increase. The diocese of Springfield, in Massachusetts, is up by 13%. Arlington's diocese, which takes in the suburbs of Washington, DC, increased by 6%. The Archdiocese of Baltimore, the county's oldest, saw a similar increase. Chicago's archdiocese, which includes some suburbs, saw a 5% increase. Enrolment increased by nearly 4% in Catholic elementary schools in Philadelphia's archdiocese.”
- S.E. Abrams