How a Small College Built SC's Sixth-Largest School District

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

In this series: SC 2025-26 Enrollment.

Erskine College is a 187-year-old liberal arts school in Due West, South Carolina, a town of fewer than 3,000 people. In 2017, it declared itself a charter school authorizer, a move permitted under state law but anticipated by no one in the Legislature. By 2025-26, the Charter Institute at Erskine^↗ enrolls 28,376 students across 28 schools statewide, making it the sixth-largest school district in South Carolina. Two students separate it from Richland 02^↗, the fifth-largest.

Seven years ago, it enrolled 8,450.

A 235.8% Surge, Mostly in One Year

The growth trajectory reveals a critical detail often lost in the headline number. Erskine did not add 19,926 students gradually. In a single year, between 2019-20 and 2020-21, enrollment jumped from 10,003 to 23,750, a gain of 13,747 students, or 137.4%.

That spike coincided with a reorganization of the charter sector. The SC Public Charter School District^↗, the state's original charter authorizer, saw enrollment drop from 20,761 to 15,773 in the same year. Schools moved between authorizers, carrying their students with them. The net effect: Erskine absorbed a substantial share of the existing charter sector rather than growing purely through new enrollment.

Since that reorganization, Erskine has continued to grow, adding 4,626 students from 2021 to 2026, a 19.5% increase over five years. That is real expansion, but it is a different story than 235.8% growth implies. The headline number reflects a structural rearrangement layered on top of genuine enrollment gains.

The Authorizer Landscape

South Carolina's charter sector runs through three operators. Their trajectories are starkly different.

The SC Public Charter School District, established by the Legislature and governed by a state-appointed board, grew steadily from 17,024 in 2015 to 25,873 in 2018. Then it contracted, dropping to 15,773 by 2021 as schools transferred to Erskine. It has since recovered to 22,115, essentially flat over 12 years.

The Limestone Charter Association^↗, authorized by Limestone University, appeared in the data in 2023 with 1,888 students and grew to 8,650 by 2026, a 358.2% increase. But Limestone University closed in May 2025, leaving its 13 schools to find new sponsors. Most transferred to the SC Public Charter School District, carrying roughly $99.4 million in state funding. Limestone's explosive growth curve will end as abruptly as it began.

Combined, the three charter operators enrolled 59,141 students in 2025-26, or 7.5% of South Carolina's total enrollment. In 2015, one operator enrolled 17,024 students, 2.2% of the total. The charter share has more than tripled.

Where the Students Came From

The charter sector gained 30,378 students between 2019 and 2026. Traditional districts lost 22,785 over the same period. The state's total enrollment rose by 7,593, meaning charter growth did not merely absorb the state's overall gains. It exceeded them by a factor of four.

Among traditional districts, 49 of 68 lost students from 2019 to 2026. Sumter 01^↗ lost the most in absolute terms: 3,273 students, a 19.7% decline. Berkeley 01^↗ and Horry 01^↗, two of the state's largest districts, gained 3,135 and 2,907 respectively, but those gains mask a broader contraction across the traditional sector.

It is not possible to determine from enrollment data alone how many of those traditional-district losses represent families choosing charter schools versus families leaving the state, shifting to private schools, or choosing homeschooling. The charter sector's growth and the traditional sector's decline are parallel trends, not necessarily a direct transfer.

How Erskine Became a District

South Carolina law allows institutions of higher education to authorize charter schools. The provision was designed for research universities partnering with laboratory schools. No one anticipated that a small private college would use it to build a statewide network of dozens of schools across multiple counties.

State law allows authorizers to retain 2% of state aid flowing to the schools they sponsor. For Erskine, with 28,376 students, that amounts to roughly $5.6 million per year. The S.C. Legislative Audit Council completed a review in 2025, clearing the institute of favoritism and conflicts of interest but flagging $820,000 in travel spending between 2023 and 2025.

"No one in the Legislature anticipated that a private college would declare itself a charter school authorizer and, having done so, appropriate for itself tax funds to distribute to as many charter schools as it chose to authorize." — The Post and Courier, Dec. 4, 2025

The audit's "all clear" on legal compliance did not quiet critics. Stanford's CREDO, in its 2023 national charter study, found South Carolina charter students underperforming their peers in both reading and math, one of only three states where charter students did not outperform traditional public school students. The state Senate passed a bill in February 2026 creating additional oversight for charter school authorizers.

Erskine's Student Body

Erskine's demographic profile diverges from the state as a whole. The institute's student body is 56.1% white, compared with 45.8% statewide. Black students make up 25.1% of Erskine's enrollment versus 30.0% statewide. Hispanic students: 10.1% versus 14.8%.

The economic profile is closer to the state average: 55.1% of Erskine students are classified as economically disadvantaged, compared with 59.9% statewide. This is not a sector serving exclusively affluent families, though it does skew whiter than the state's public school population as a whole.

The Sixth-Largest District

Greenville 01^↗, the state's largest traditional district at 76,398 students, is nearly three times Erskine's size. But Erskine is larger than 93.1% of South Carolina's traditional districts. It enrolls more students than Aiken 01 (22,742), more than Dorchester 02 (25,716), and more than five of the seven individual Spartanburg districts.

A new funding bill, Senate Bill 774, would require the Department of Education to redirect local revenue per pupil from traditional districts to charter authorizers for each student attending a charter school. The bill would affect 70,000 to 80,000 students statewide. If enacted, it would formalize the financial transfer that charter growth already represents.

What Happens Next

The charter sector is projected to keep growing. Erskine alone plans to add at least eight new schools in the coming academic year, with projections to reach 40,000 students. The Limestone schools that transferred to the SC Public Charter School District will inflate that operator's numbers in future years. The combined charter share could approach 10% within two to three years.

A school building does not get cheaper to heat when 50 students leave. A bus route does not shorten. Per-pupil funding follows departing students, but the superintendent's salary, the bus fleet, and the boiler bill do not scale down. In a state where 49 of 68 traditional districts shrank over the past seven years, charter growth is no longer a policy experiment. It is the second-largest enrollment story in South Carolina.

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

Richland 02 - EdTribune SC - South Carolina Education Data