Portland Public Schools enrolled about 150 more students than Portland State University anticipated it would in the 2025–26 school year. Yet an annual report by PSU’s Population Research Center continues to project long-term enrollment loss in Oregon’s largest school district.
In the most recent school year, PPS enrolled 42,622 students. PSU forecasts that number will fall to 36,763 by 2035–36, a decline of nearly 14%. That’s news that district officials are well aware of, and consequential because those numbers heavily influence PPS budgeting decisions.
The figures are slightly more optimistic than last year’s forecast, based on the district’s 2024–25 enrollment, which projected the district would enroll 36,405 students in 10 years. That’s in part because, while the district reported 753 fewer students in the latest academic year, it did see an unexpected uptick in kindergartners. The district enrolled almost 200 more kindergartners than forecasts predicted it would…