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Halfway through the 2020s, Virginia’s population continues to grow, but at a slower pace than in the last decade, according to figures from the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.

That reduced growth rate is reflected in enrollment figures for Virginia’s K-12 school districts, which tallied about 10,000 fewer children beginning kindergarten in 2025 than in 2019, according to center figures.

The Cooper Center provides nonpartisan data, research services, and training programs to local communities, state government agencies, and public sector leaders, which policymakers and elected officials use to make decisions.

Sol Baik, senior researcher for the center’s Demographics Research Group, analyzes Virginia’s population trends. Here are the main takeaways from the research.

Sol Baik is a senior researcher for the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service’s Demographics Research Group, which analyzes Virginia’s population trends. (Contributed photo)

• Virginia’s population growth has slowed this decade, with an average annual growth rate of 0.5%, compared to 0.76% during the previous decade.
• Natural population increase – the number of babies born compared to the number of people who die – contributed less to growth because birth rates remain low and the population continues to age. More than two-thirds of Virginia’s growth since 2020 has come from people moving in from other states and from abroad.
• In the past five years, more than 80% of Virginia’s total population growth occurred in Northern Virginia, Richmond and Virginia Beach metropolitan areas. The Winchester, Richmond and Harrisonburg metro areas experienced the fastest growth. The Charlottesville metro area added more than 10,000 residents, with a growth rate exceeding the average across the state’s 11 metropolitan areas.
• Non-metropolitan and non-micropolitan counties saw modest overall growth. The Northern Neck and Eastern Shore regions gained population, while many counties in Southside and Southwest Virginia experienced slight declines.

Cooper Center officials said population estimates were benchmarked to the 2020 U.S. Census and relied on indicators such as births, deaths, school enrollments, driver’s licenses and housing to model each locality’s share of the total state population.

After years of growth during the 1990s and early 2000s, school enrollment in Virginia’s K-12 programs has continued to decline, a trend that began before the pandemic.

Elementary school enrollment is tied to the number of births, and kindergarten class sizes have been shrinking since about 2008 as births declined, according to Zach Jackson, school enrollment projections manager for the Demographics Research Group.

Statewide public K-12 enrollment plunged by nearly 40,000 students in fall 2020, at the height of the COVID pandemic. Enrollment modestly rebounded in 2021 and 2022, but then hovered around 1.22 million students through 2024. 

Here are some takeaways from the research into K-12 enrollments:

• Virginia’s K-12 enrollment declined at a sharper-than-expected rate of 1.2% (nearly 15,000 students) in fall 2025, marking the most significant single-year drop since the pandemic. The center’s 2024 projections anticipated a more modest decline of 0.5% (about 6,000 students). “This gap suggests that factors beyond the long-term decline in births contributed to the recent drop; however, we’re unable to confidently identify these drivers at this time,” Jackson said.
• Many Virginia school divisions will likely experience enrollment declines over the next five years. At the state level, the center forecasts a 3% loss of students – 36,827 – over the next five years. Impacts are most evident in the urban and suburban divisions that drove much of the state’s K-12 growth during the 2010s.
• Enrollment in Loudoun, Fairfax and Arlington counties could fall by 4.7% to 6.6% during the next five years, representing a combined loss of more than 11,000 students.
• Charlottesville’s enrollment could fall by about 12%, or 507 students.

A slower growth rate of 2.5% (347 students) is expected for Albemarle County, compared to its 2015-19 rate of nearly 5% (655 students).

School Enrollment Projection for Virginia School Divisions