Aging population and housing shortfall driving Vermont public school enrollment decline, presenter says

Kevin Chiu, executive director of the Vermont Futures Project, told the Center of Education Committee on Feb. 20 that Vermont’s aging population and a shortage of housing are reducing public school enrollment and will raise per‑pupil costs unless officials change policy.

Chiu said the state has lost almost 30,000 people in the 25‑to‑49 age cohort since earlier decades and that Vermont’s fertility rate is the lowest in the nation. “Data isn’t destiny,” Chiu said, adding that policy choices could put the state on a different trajectory.

The presentation linked demographic shifts to enrollment and workforce trends. Chiu said public K‑12 enrollment has declined by “over 20,000 students” in the past 20 years and that National Center for Education Statistics projections show further declines through 2031. He told the committee the state could see about a 3,000‑student drop in the next five to six years if current trends continue.

Chiu also described the worker side of the equation: the Vermont Department of Labor estimate that about 17,150 people retire or otherwise leave the workforce each year, and the state has roughly 5,300 twelfth‑grade students in a given year. “To fill this gap, we need about 13,500 people entering the workforce each year,” Chiu said, noting that even perfect retention of high school graduates would require net in‑migration to meet demand.

Housing, Chiu said, constrains any effort to grow the working‑age population. He cited a state housing needs assessment (fall 2024) that estimated Vermont needs 24,000 to 36,000 new homes over five years — about 7,200 per year at the high end — while current building permit data show roughly 2,500 new units per year. That gap, he told the committee, helps explain elevated housing costs and limits the state’s ability to expand its tax base.

Chiu recommended a two‑track approach of “efficiency and expansion”: increase labor‑force participation and retention (efficiency) while also expanding housing and the working‑age population (expansion). He emphasized tailoring strategies to local conditions, noting that some towns have “latent capacity” — population and housing peaks in past decades that could be tapped for revitalization — while growth has clustered in the Burlington metro and resort towns.

Committee members asked about data details, including whether the analysis captures independent and tuitioned students (Chiu said the enrollment figures are for public schools only), and whether post‑pandemic migration might change long‑term projections (Chiu said in‑migration over the past three years has included many people in their 30s and 40s with school‑age children, which could alter trends).

Chiu described next steps for the Vermont Futures Project, including regional dashboards and more localized “ground‑truthing” to identify where housing and jobs should be prioritized. He framed the economic action plan’s long-term population goal — a working‑age population target of 802,000 by 2035 — as achievable with modest annual growth and local, targeted strategies.

The presentation repeatedly separated discussion from formal action: the committee heard data and asked questions but took no votes or formal policy actions during the session. Chiu and members agreed that further local analysis would be required before any policy changes.

Chiu closed by repeating the presentation’s central point: demographic trends point to fewer school‑age children absent policy changes, but “data isn’t destiny” and communities can pursue strategies that either expand the tax base and schools or pursue scarcity‑based responses such as consolidation that could have long‑term consequences.