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Gladys Martinez/Jennifer Day
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Elementary, High School Students Nearing Baby Boom
Peak, Census Bureau Reports
The number of students enrolled in U.S. elementary and high schools
reached 48 million in 1997, just shy of the all-time high of 49 million
recorded by the Baby Boom generation in 1970, according to a report
released today by the Commerce Department's Census Bureau.
The report, School Enrollment in the United States -- Social and
Economic Characteristics of Students: October 1997, P20-516, is the
Census Bureau's annual update on enrollment trends.
"In the past few years, as the children of 'baby boomers' reached school
age, elementary and high school enrollments have risen, and this trend is
expected to continue for the near future," said Gladys Martinez, one of
the report's authors. "This comes on the heels of declining enrollments in
the 1970s and early 1980s when there was a general decrease in the 6- to
17-year-old population."
Elementary and high school students in 1997 were more racially and
ethnically diverse than students of the baby boom generation, the report
said. For example, in 1972, when the crest of the baby boom was in
elementary and high school, 85 percent of the student population were
White, 14 percent, African American and the remaining 1 percent, mostly
Asian or other races. In 1997, 78 percent of elementary and high school
students were White, 17 percent, African American and 4 percent, Asian.
The proportion of students of Hispanic origin (of any race) also increased
-- from about 6 percent in 1972 to 14 percent in 1997.
Other significant statistics for 1997 in the report:
College enrollment of traditional college-age students (those under
age 25) reached a record high of 9.4 million.
Some 4.5 million children were enrolled in public or private nursery
schools, compared with 500,000 in 1964.
About 1 in 5 (9.0 million) elementary and high school students had a
foreign-born parent.
Of all students enrolled in college, 81 percent were White, 12 percent,
African American, about 8 percent, Hispanic (of any race) and 6
percent, Asian or Pacific Islander. The Asian or Pacific Islander and
Hispanic percentages were not significantly different.
More than a quarter of the nation's population (72.0 million people)
were enrolled in some type of school.
Data in this report were obtained from the October 1997 Current
Population Survey. As in all surveys, the data are subject to sampling
variability and other sources of error.
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The U.S. Census Bureau, pre-eminent collector and disseminator of timely,
relevant and quality data about the people and the economy of the United
States, conducts a population and housing census every 10 years, an
economic census every five years and more than 100 demographic and
economic surveys every year, all of them evolving from the first census in
1790.
