In this series: South Carolina 2025-26 Enrollment.

A year ago, South Carolina's enrollment story was the opposite of most states. While neighbors bled students, South Carolina was growing. The state had fully recovered from COVID, added 30,000 students since 2014-15, and reached a record 796,780 in 2024-25. Administrators in Greenville and Charleston talked about capacity constraints, not closures. The 800,000 milestone felt inevitable.

Then the South Carolina Department of Education posted its 2025-26 Active Student Headcounts, and the growth era ended: 789,086 public school students, down 7,694 from the prior year. That is the largest non-COVID enrollment loss in 12 years of state data, and the only decline year outside the pandemic since records begin in 2014-15. South Carolina came within 3,220 students of 800,000 and turned around. Whatever floor people thought they saw last year was not a floor.

What the numbers open up

The enrollment data covers approximately 114 districts, from suburban boomtowns on the Charlotte border to Corridor of Shame districts that have lost more than 40% of their students in a decade. Over the coming weeks, The SCEdTribune will unpack it in a series of data-driven articles. Here is what jumps out first.

White students fell below 50% seven years ago. The gap keeps widening. South Carolina crossed the majority-minority threshold in 2018-19, and in 2025-26 the white share fell to 45.8%. Hispanic enrollment has nearly doubled since 2014-15, adding 57,000 students while white enrollment dropped 24,000. The demographic transformation is accelerating, not leveling off.

Six districts have declined every year for 11 straight years. Colleton, Darlington, Fairfield, McCormick, Marion, and Williamsburg counties have not gained a single student since 2014-15. Several sit along the I-95 corridor long known as the Corridor of Shame. McCormick has 483 students left.

Charter operators added 4,357 students while 61 traditional districts shrank. The Charter Institute at Erskine has grown from 8,450 to 28,376 students since 2017-18, a 236% increase. Erskine alone added more students in 2025-26 than all but two traditional districts enrolled in total.

By the numbers: 789,086 students statewide in 2025-26 — down 7,694 from the prior year, a 1.0% decline and the first non-COVID enrollment loss in a decade of data.

The threads we are following

The coast just flipped. Berkeley, Horry, and Charleston counties grew every year from 2015-16 through 2024-25. All three lost students in 2025-26. The reversal is sudden and synchronized, suggesting something structural rather than district-specific.

South Carolina now enrolls fewer kindergartners than seniors. The K-to-G12 ratio dropped below 100 for the first time in 2024-25 and fell further to 95.4 in 2025-26. Kindergarten is down 9.2% since 2014-15 while 12th grade is up 21.7%. The pipeline is shrinking from the bottom.

Black enrollment fell 15% even as total enrollment grew. Black students have gone from the largest racial group to the second-largest, losing 21,561 students since 2014-15 while Hispanic enrollment surged. The decline outpaces white losses in both absolute and percentage terms.

What comes next

This is the first in a series of articles examining what the 2025-26 enrollment data reveals about South Carolina public schools. New articles publish weekly on Thursdays.

The enrollment figures come from the SCDE Active Student Headcounts. The data covers headcount enrollment for public school districts statewide.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.