NYC schools’ enrollment is in free fall yet spending only goes up and up

As the migrant crisis recedes, enrollment in city Department of Education schools is back in free fall, but with no sign it’ll translate to lower spending anytime soon.

DOE enrollment for 2025-’26 is down 2.4% from the year before, a drop of 22,000 students to about 884,400 total as of Oct. 31, Chalkbeat New York reports.

That’s the biggest decline since the 2021-’22 school year, after which a total of some 50,000 “asylum seeker” children kept the numbers up.

As a result, two-thirds of city schools have fewer students than budgeted for at the year’s start. Since schools are supposed to be funded based on the number of students, that should require them to refund $250 million in total, while the schools teaching more kids than expected get added funds.

But caretaker Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos has stuck with the “hold harmless” policy adopted during the pandemic: Declining schools get to keep the money this year.

Yes, the cash is practically a rounding error in the DOE’s $41 billion budget; sure, maybe exceptions should be made on some particular basis — but this is still malpractice.

As the DOE’s migrant “sugar high” wears off, enrollment will plummet faster — unless the quality of classroom instruction clearly rises.

The main thing keeping DOE spending up will be the class-size law the state inflicted on New York City alone, to please the political-powerhouse United Federation of Teachers.

Indeed, appeasing the UFT looks to be a central reason Aviles-Ramos stuck with the hold-harmless rule, even though she offered some boilerplate rhetoric about uncertainty over possible cuts in aid by the Republicans in charge of the federal government.

As if wasting money this year somehow would help with any possible crisis next year, and as if the city and state governments couldn’t compensate.

These games are part of why New York City already spends by far the most in the nation on its schools, an insane $42,000 per student.

Getting enrollment to rise would require offering more good schools, yet the class-size law will actually force lower enrollment at successful schools.

As for improving existing schools: Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani mainly only talks about reducing accountability, protecting spending and undermining Gifted & Talented programs.

The stars looked aligned for the city to keep spending ever more on ever-fewer kids — unless it hits a ginormous budget crisis, or the voters finally revolt.