Below the surface of Ohio's population growth in the last decennial census lies another trend that has begun impacting schools – fewer and fewer school-aged children growing up in the state.
Since 2010,
public and charter school student enrollment in Ohio has declined 10% from around 1.9 million students to around 1.72 million students in fall 2025, according to state data. Since 2020, the population of students enrolled has declined around 4% – although Ohio did register a modest increase in the 2021-2022 school year.
And those aren't just students that have switched to private schools. State data show that Ohio private schools largely hemorrhaged student population from 2010 until 2022, when the state legislature greatly expanded private school voucher access. Private schools had 188,000 students in 2010, but that had dropped to 163,000 in 2022. Since the voucher expansion, enrollment surged back to about 184,000.
For Morgan Local Schools Superintendent Greg Gifford, the decline is a concerning reality. Since 2010, Morgan Local Schools enrollment has declined over 25%, from 2,141 students in 2009-2010 to 1,553 in the 2025-2026 school year, according to state data.
Gifford, who heads a district with three elementary schools, a middle school and high school serving Morgan County, said he is concerned about the trends.
'We are definitely seeing it across across our district and across the county, and numbers are are definitely shrinking," Gifford said. "The financial crunch and trying to make sure that all of our kids are getting everything that they need is definitely happening."
The student population decline reflects a downward trend of young people in Ohio. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, while adult population in Ohio grew over 10% from 2010 to 2020, the under-18 population in Ohio declined 1.4%. In 2024, The Dispatch reported on the "baby bust," a trend of declining birthrates in Ohio and nationally, driven by the high cost of childcare, personal reasons or concerns about the state of the world.
Some areas have been hit harder by population decline than others – particularly in the Appalachian regions of Ohio. For example Harrison County has seen the greatest decline in population among Ohio's 88 counties. Harrison Hills Local Schools, which serves most of the county, has seen student population decline more than 27% over 15 years, from 1,761 in 2010 to 1,283 in 2026.
State Sen. Andrew Brenner, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said the state estimates that Ohio loses 1% of its student population each year. He said the state needs to balance its funding to support growing schools versus "legacy" money supporting declining schools.
"It's this idea of trying to balance the money to make sure it's going to district that are growing, and make sure that the districts where they've been shrinking, those dollars start to get reduced," said Brenner, a Delaware Republican. "That's just that simple, we should not be funding phantom students."
Ohio State University political science professor Vlad Kogan, who has studied the state's enrollment trends, said declining enrollment will create budgetary challenges for many schools around the state, especially public schools that have been used to growth.
"It's always easy to build new schools and hire new people, but on the other hand when student numbers start to shrink then you have to undo those things," Kogan said. "It's much easier to close a school than it is to open a school, it's much easier to hire teachers than to fire teachers.
Central Ohio bucks statewide trend
While enrollment trends on a state level are declining, in central Ohio the population is rapidly expanding. The Dispatch previouslyreported that the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission estimates a 15-county region centered on Franklin County will add about 725,000 people by 2050.
Across Franklin County, school district enrollment is either stable or trending upward, according to state data.
The region's growth is most evident at Olentangy Local Schools in Delaware County, which adds 400-500 students a year and is now the fourth-largest district in the state. In 2010, the district had just over 15,000 students. In 2026, it has over 23,000.
By 2040, the district projects it could have around 32,000 students and be the third-largest. To accommodate growth, and overcrowding issues, the district has broken ground on an 18th elementary school and fifth high school funded by a 2025 bond issue.
Columbus City Schools, the state's largest district, has declined from a 1970s peak of 110,000 students. But it also appears to have leveled off its decline. In 2010, Columbus Schools had a enrollment of 52,800. Since the 2020-2021 school year, the district had over 46,600 students, but since then it has ticked down to 45,806 in the 2025-2026 school year.
A Columbus City Schools statement said that the district expects enrollment to remain stable. The statement said that despite competition and state funding for charter and private schools, "many parents have learned that CCS provides a high-quality experience for students and a wide variety of special programs."
"We are committed to reversing decades of slowly decreasing class sizes by focusing on quality educational programming in neighborhood schools," the statement said.
For rural Ohio, tough decisions loom
In southeast Ohio, where population declines have been the greatest, districts will have to face choices about how to manage their resources.
Gifford said that "our small schools are the hearts" of the region and people take immense pride in them, but elementary school enrollment levels "are definitely smaller than what we'd like to see."
Kogan noted that unlike suburban or urban areas, there may not be "school choice" options for families or opportunities for public schools to win students back.
"There's very few charter schools outside of the big urban districts, and when we talk about private schools, that is also relatively geographically concentrated," Kogan said. "In rural areas, there's not a lot of alternative providers, so there's not many things they can do to actually increase the number of students or population base."
Brenner said that many rural schools are doing well, and that the challenges have nothing to do with the quality of the schools. For many districts in declining regions around the state, however, he said consolidation may be a smart solution for shrinking resources. He even suggested the idea of a state fund aimed to help districts that voluntarily seek to merge or begin resource sharing.
"In some of these rural counties, should they really have three, four or five school districts?" Brenner said. "Should there maybe be countywide systems in those areas? That's going to be a discussion they're going to have to have to come to terms with those realities."
Gifford said for Morgan Local, which is already serves almost all of Morgan County, consolidation is out of the picture. Some kids would face hour-plus bus rides across the county in a consolidated situation.
"I've actually had a couple of people come ask me what are the positives of being a county wide school district, and I think I'm usually a pretty optimistic person but I think there's more struggles than than than there are positives, and and the majority of that comes down to busing and travel," Gifford said.
Gifford said that more and more, the graduates of Morgan Local say they want to stay in their community, but are challenged because of a lack of employment opportunities. Gifford said the district is emphasizing workforce and career-technical skills to help graduates find or create opportunities at home.
"I think that is a positive trend," Gifford said. "But the other piece of that is that we have to find jobs for them. With the internet making the world smaller, there's more and more opportunities for kids to stay home and not have to not have to leave the region."
Cole Behrens covers K-12 education and school districts in central Ohio. Have a tip? Contact Cole at cbehrens@dispatch.com or connect with him on X at @Colebehr_report
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio has fewer young people. What does that mean for schools?
