California High School Enrollment Trends
Source: California Department of Education Census Day Enrollment (public + charter) and Private School Affidavit. A shrinking senior cohort can push Reach percentages up at the school level even when admit counts hold flat — context that matters when reading year-over-year changes.
Read the research brief: The public-private divergence → — the story this data tells, in five minutes.
The state of California enrollment
California's two-track story — private growing, public shrinking, but the sorting story matters more
Between 2020 and 2025, California's K-12 enrollment split into two trajectories:
Total enrollment grew from 158,438 to 172,113 across 321 CA private high schools. Demand at private secondaries has held up post-COVID.
Total enrollment fell from 2,355,827 to 2,357,529 across 2,849 CA public + charter high schools. The headwind is demographic — fewer children, smaller cohorts entering high school.
But the bigger story is inside each sector. California families are sorting between schools more than they used to — which means some high schools are growing even as the average shrinks, and some are shrinking inside a sector that's growing on average:
| Sector (2025) | ▲ Growing >2% | ─ Within ±2% | ▼ Shrinking >2% | N schools |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public + Charter | 851 (30%) | 301 (11%) | 1,697 (60%) | 2,849 |
| Private | 152 (47%) | 40 (12%) | 129 (40%) | 321 |
The implication for school leaders: the squeeze is not uniform. Even in a sector that's shrinking on average, hundreds of California high schools are gaining students — through reputation, programs, location, or what they're known for. The schools that families actively choose are growing; schools that families default to are most exposed. This is the dynamic a Reach Report measures →
Method: Total enrollment by school, comparing 2020 (CDE's first year of broad private-school coverage) to 2025. Growing/shrinking = ±2% change in total enrollment. Schools missing either endpoint are excluded from the per-school breakdown. Virtual / nonclassroom-based charter schools excluded throughout. Source: CDE Census Day Enrollment + Private School Affidavit.
Look up a school's enrollment trend
Start typing a school name, city, or district to see grade 12 and total enrollment over all available years.
Grade-12 enrollment by school type
Statewide totals — sum of grade-12 enrollment across all schools with data for each year. Charter schools are grouped with public because charter enrollment data in the CDE feed maps to one row in this database.
Note on baselines: Private % computed since 2020 — CDE's private enrollment file broadened that year (from 8 schools reporting in 2018 to 349 in 2020); using 2018 would compare unlike datasets.
Leaders & laggards by enrollment trend
Top 25 schools growing fastest, bottom 25 shrinking fastest, among comprehensive UC-feeding high schools. Compares earliest vs latest year on file. Excludes schools with fewer than 30 baseline seniors and those with little or no UC application history (continuation, independent-study, and credit-recovery programs) — their grade-12 counts swing wildly and aren't comparable. The shrinking list also requires at least 100 total students.
▲ Top 25 — fastest growing
| # | School | Then → Now | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 136 '18 → 336 '26 | +147.1% | |
| 2 | 77 '18 → 190 '26 | +146.8% | |
| 3 | 261 '18 → 615 '26 | +135.6% | |
| 4 | 72 '18 → 165 '26 | +129.2% | |
| 5 | 36 '18 → 80 '26 | +122.2% | |
| 6 | 53 '18 → 116 '26 | +118.9% | |
| 7 | 32 '18 → 67 '26 | +109.4% | |
| 8 | 64 '18 → 124 '26 | +93.8% | |
| 9 | 58 '18 → 110 '26 | +89.7% | |
| 10 | 145 '18 → 275 '26 | +89.7% | |
| 11 | 65 '18 → 119 '26 | +83.1% | |
| 12 | 146 '18 → 267 '26 | +82.9% | |
| 13 | 60 '18 → 106 '26 | +76.7% | |
| 14 | 159 '18 → 278 '26 | +74.8% | |
| 15 | 67 '18 → 117 '26 | +74.6% | |
| 16 | 78 '18 → 134 '26 | +71.8% | |
| 17 | 108 '18 → 179 '26 | +65.7% | |
| 18 | 71 '18 → 116 '26 | +63.4% | |
| 19 | 182 '18 → 296 '26 | +62.6% | |
| 20 | 549 '18 → 889 '26 | +61.9% | |
| 21 | 141 '18 → 227 '26 | +61.0% | |
| 22 | 99 '18 → 158 '26 | +59.6% | |
| 23 | 125 '18 → 199 '26 | +59.2% | |
| 24 | 128 '18 → 202 '26 | +57.8% | |
| 25 | 137 '18 → 212 '26 | +54.7% |
▼ Bottom 25 — fastest shrinking
| # | School | Then → Now | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 166 '18 → 57 '26 | -65.7% | |
| 2 | 58 '18 → 22 '26 | -62.1% | |
| 3 | 93 '18 → 39 '26 | -58.1% | |
| 4 | 129 '18 → 58 '26 | -55.0% | |
| 5 | 864 '18 → 403 '26 | -53.4% | |
| 6 | 105 '18 → 50 '26 | -52.4% | |
| 7 | 147 '18 → 73 '26 | -50.3% | |
| 8 | 218 '18 → 117 '26 | -46.3% | |
| 9 | 273 '18 → 147 '26 | -46.2% | |
| 10 | 114 '18 → 64 '26 | -43.9% | |
| 11 | 147 '18 → 83 '26 | -43.5% | |
| 12 | 394 '18 → 224 '26 | -43.1% | |
| 13 | 270 '18 → 154 '26 | -43.0% | |
| 14 | 287 '18 → 164 '26 | -42.9% | |
| 15 | 559 '18 → 335 '26 | -40.1% | |
| 16 | 93 '18 → 56 '26 | -39.8% | |
| 17 | 199 '18 → 121 '26 | -39.2% | |
| 18 | 49 '18 → 30 '26 | -38.8% | |
| 19 | 786 '18 → 492 '26 | -37.4% | |
| 20 | 626 '18 → 394 '26 | -37.1% | |
| 21 | 111 '18 → 70 '26 | -36.9% | |
| 22 | 548 '18 → 346 '26 | -36.9% | |
| 23 | 158 '18 → 100 '26 | -36.7% | |
| 24 | 241 '18 → 154 '26 | -36.1% | |
| 25 | 62 '18 → 40 '26 | -35.5% |
Detail
| Year | Public + Charter | Private | Total | Public Schools | Private Schools |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 454,855 | 725 | 455,580 | 1921 | 8 |
| 2019 | 457,248 | 778 | 458,026 | 1983 | 9 |
| 2020 | 449,026 | 28,289 | 477,315 | 1994 | 349 |
| 2021 | 452,738 | 29,009 | 481,747 | 2016 | 347 |
| 2022 | 457,012 | 28,084 | 485,096 | 2046 | 338 |
| 2023 | 455,678 | 28,824 | 484,502 | 2076 | 343 |
| 2024 | 479,941 | 28,880 | 508,821 | 2219 | 354 |
| 2025 | 470,152 | 30,033 | 500,185 | 2221 | 351 |