By Sarah Betancourt, May 14, 2026
Enrollment numbers in K-12 schools are dropping significantly in Massachusetts, and the impact of immigration enforcement might be a major factor.
That’s according to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, which released a report on Wednesday focused on declining enrollment numbers in Massachusetts public schools, particularly among English learners.
“From October 2024 to October 2025, we lost about 14,600 students. And 46% of those were English learners,” said Anthony Clough, the K-12 and higher education analyst with MassBudget who wrote the report.
He said English learner students are not always immigrants or children without status, and vice versa. There are U.S.-born students who are developing an English proficiency, and many immigrant students who are already proficient in English.
“However, English learner status is currently the closest proxy available in publicly reported education data for tracking trends that may affect immigrant communities,” he said. “So what the data shows is that the student population has grown year-over-year since the pandemic until this year, when it declined by 6,800 students.“
The enrollment figures will ultimately impact the fiscal year 2027 budget the state is currently working on.
The report focused on Gateway Cities, mid-sized municipalities with lower incomes and lower educational attainment than the state average. While some other cities with large immigrant populations saw steeper declines — the number of English learners in Framingham was 11%, higher than any Gateway City — MassBudget said it decided to focus on those communities because ”they are the least fiscally able to meet the budget gap that is created by these high need students leaving the district.”
English learner enrollment declined in 22 out of 26 Gateway City public school districts.
“Given continual, harsh, and life-altering federal immigration enforcement activity, it is reasonable to suspect that these conditions are discouraging some immigrant children, and others perceived as not fully proficient in English, from attending school,” the report said.
Revere, Everett, Leominster, Methuen and Chelsea saw the largest drops in enrollment.
