SAINT PAUL — Minnesota schools are at a population crossroads as the state — and our school districts — must prepare not only for declining birth rates statewide, but the influx of new immigrant communities in recent years that will need support, engagement and infrastructure, if they are to succeed.
Births in Minnesota are declining statewide.
That’s the prediction from the Minnesota State Demographic Center, which forecasts that the state’s overall student population will continue to drop year-over-year into the foreseeable future while the school-age population grows more diverse.
Minnesota State Demographer Dr. Susan Brower told the AMSD Board of Directors in October that while births had been declining statewide well before the pandemic, she speculates that statewide population and workforce growth will continue to slow into the foreseeable future. At the same time, she noted, the percentage of racial and ethnic diversity in Minnesota’s school-age population will continue to increase.
That is consistent with the MN Department of Education’s latest special population report showing nearly 11 percent of students statewide were identified as English learners in 2024-25. More than 91,000 students were eligible for English learner services, an increase of more than 7,000 students from 2023- 24.
Meanwhile, the total number of children statewide, by age, is shrinking. As the 2024 chart of Minnesota Children by Single Year of Age and Sex shows, births in Minnesota have been steadily declining statewide, creating successively smaller cohorts of school-age children from ages 17 to 0.
“This is a bigger kind of social and economic trend that’s happening,” Brower said. “It’s tied into our economics and to social norms, and I don’t expect to see it turn around anytime soon.”
But planning for a school-aged population to downsize — while it’s simultaneously growing in immigrant and non-English speaking populations — offers Minnesota a chance to realign its educational resources for the future, Brower said.
“Even speaking about funding formulas, we’ve created formulas that work during a period of ongoing growth, both population growth and growth in the child population.”
Racial and ethnic diversity continues to increase.
“We’re really at a different place here, and while this can be unsettling to be kind of in a new place, we can also take stock and say OK, now that we’re here, what would work better going forward, given the fact that we’re not likely to be growing as much, given the fact that we’re likely to have these other kind of costs in the state budget?”
“It gives us this opportunity to rethink some of how we’ve done things in the past.”
Data trends have shown that for more than 20 years young adults lead the exodus of Minnesota’s population decline — which is a characteristic of the greater Midwest region losing its 19, 20, and 21-year-olds to post-secondary schools in other states and opportunities in larger cities and the coasts. But while young adults may fly their proverbial nests, many other populations see opportunity in Minnesota.
Brower said data from the last three years showed a net population increase of an estimated 30,000 from international immigration — ”a really high number” — which she credited to Minnesota’s “large, growing, and a well-economically-situated metropolitan area, which tends to be more of a destination spot for new immigrants.” Brower noted that the recent growth in the number of international immigrants is likely to slow given the changes in federal immigration policy.
That influx also means increases in racial and ethnic diversity for Minnesota’s school-age population, which brings opportunities and challenges. Currently one in five children in Minnesota — 20 percent — have at least one foreign-born parent.
Additional staff and support are critical to help these students succeed. Several AMSD districts now report more than 20 percent of their student population eligible for English learner services including Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Richfield, Burnsville, St. Cloud and Columbia Heights — which reported nearly half (48.3 percent) of its student population in 2024-25 as eligible for EL services.
“The Legislature needs to come along,” Brower said. “The whole state, communities need to come along and understand that we are in a different place than we were in the past.”
