education
School enrollment (age 3+)
Why this matters
Enrollment shows who is actively learning right now. This measure captures the share of people age 3 and older who are enrolled in school, from preschool all the way through college and graduate study.
Early enrollment matters because preschool helps children arrive at kindergarten ready to learn. Strong enrollment in the later years signals that teens are staying in school and that adults are pursuing college or training that can lift their earnings.
Enrollment patterns also help local leaders plan classroom space, teachers, child care, and college programs. Shifts up or down can be an early sign of population change or new demand.
In the Charlotte region, enrollment patterns also reflect a longer story: after Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools moved away from court-ordered busing to neighborhood schools in 2002, schools resegregated along residential lines, a shift researchers have linked to widening achievement gaps.
About the Charlotte region
This explorer covers the 14-county, two-state Charlotte region (11 North Carolina and 3 South Carolina counties). Many of these indicators connect to a defining regional story: a landmark Harvard study ranked Charlotte last, 50th of the 50 largest U.S. metros for economic mobility (a child raised in the poorest fifth had about a 4.4% chance of reaching the top fifth), a finding that launched the region's Leading on Opportunity agenda. Updated 2024 data show Charlotte has since climbed to 38th.
Opportunity here is also unevenly mapped. An affluent “wedge” fanning southeast from uptown holds a large majority of the city's wealth on under a quarter of its land, while a ”crescent” to the north, west, and east carries higher poverty, a legacy of redlining, exclusionary zoning, and highway routing that recurs across the race, income, health, tree-canopy, and school maps in this tool. No single indicator is good or bad on its own; together they describe how the region sorted opportunity.
Companion resources: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer · UNC Charlotte Urban Institute · Opportunity Atlas · Methods & sources
Learn more
- U.S. Census Bureau — School Enrollment census.gov
Data on enrollment from preschool through college, including public and private.
- U.S. Census Bureau — Why We Ask: School Enrollment census.gov
How enrollment data is collected and used to plan schools and services.
- EdNC — Charlotte, the Swann decision, and resegregation ednc.org
Background on CMS desegregation history and its echoes in today’s enrollment.
About the data
Calculated from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (2014–2024), at the Census-tract level, with margins of error. ACS 5-year vintages overlap year to year, so the series is a rolling estimate; compare only non-overlapping periods.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.