Census finds 2022 preschool enrollment returned to pre-pandemic numbers

U.S. preschool enrollment bounced back to pre-pandemic numbers last year as officials lifted COVID-19 restrictions, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. 

The federal agency said 53.3% of children aged 3 and 4 enrolled in public and private schools in 2022 “when the pandemic emergency ended.” That was up from 50.4% in 2021 and 40.3% in 2020.

“School enrollment for this group in 2022 was not statistically different than it was in 2018 and 2019,” Adrienne Griffiths, a Census Bureau statistician, wrote in a summary of the findings.

According to the bureau’s population surveys, Hispanic children experienced the sharpest enrollment declines during pandemic lockdowns, followed by Black children and White children.

Ms. Griffiths said “shuttered schools and remote learning” drove school enrollment among Hispanic 3- and 4-year-olds down from 49.4% in 2019 to 33% in 2020 before it grew by 14.4 percentage points from 2020 to 2022. Last year, 47.4% of Hispanics in the age group enrolled in school. 

Meanwhile, the share of enrolled Black children fell by 14.1 percentage points, from 55% in 2019 to 40.9% in 2020. Last year, it surged to 61.7%, higher than the previous four years.

Among White children aged 3 and 4, the bureau noted that enrollment fell by 11% from 2019 to 2020 and then “recovered fully” as it grew by 11.2% from 2020 to 2022.

The bureau noted that children from other races have yet to experience a similar recovery, however.

The share of children from “other races” aged 3 and 4 who enrolled in school fell from 57.9% in 2019 to 46.4% in 2020. Enrollment “inched up” to 49.1% in 2022, Ms. Griffiths noted. 

The Census Bureau did not explain the different recovery rates for these racial groups.