“How do you become a destination district for all families when all family needs are different?”
This was the question posed by ISD 200 School Board Chair Carrie Tate when asked about declining enrollment in the district. And that question in particular gets to the heart of why declining enrollment is a difficult issue to parse.
Enrollment sits at the intersection of many issues from birth rates to housing to academic achievement.
There are many reasons why students and families come and go from one district to another and they can range from structural issues like commute times to district-specific issues like graduation rates.
Enrollment has been consistently declining in Hastings Public Schools for beyond the last two decades. That steady decline has continued through recessions, administrations and even a pandemic, which begs the question: why is enrollment so consistently declining in ISD 200?
This article does not seek to answer that question, but rather to contextualize it to better understand which factors might be affecting enrollment. In particular, this article will focus on demographic and economic factors with an article next week focusing on district-specific factors like test scores and extra-curricular programming.
Enrollment
In 2024, ISD 200 had an average daily membership (ADM) of 4,036 and 4,438 pupil units according to ISD 200 District audit reports.
Those numbers have fallen since the high-water mark in 2008 in which the district had an ADM of 4,958 and 5,792 pupil units.
ADM for the district is down more than 800 since 2008; that’s a more than 18% decline.
In that timeframe, the decline of ADM has been relatively steady, dropping by about 57 annually, ranging from a drop in 0.49%-3.01% each year for the past 15 years. The years with the largest decline are 2010-2011 with a 2.84% decrease and in 2020-2021 with a 3.01% decrease in ADM.
Demographic Issues: Age, Families, and Birth Rates
Obvious factors for declining enrollment are population age and birthrates. These are especially at play in Hastings.
The total population of Hastings has remained stable for the past 10 years. According to the US Census Bureau’s Decennial Census, between 2010 and 2020, the city of Hastings’ population changed by fewer than 20 people: from 22,172 in 2010 to 22,154 in 2020.
Other measurements for Hastings’ population, like the American Community Survey and the city’s own measurement, do show larger growth, roughly 1,000 new residents in that timeframe, however.
Despite that overall stability, demographics within the town have changed considerably.
Hastings has a median age of 40.8, more than a year older than the median age of the state of Minnesota (39.1) and that of the United States (39.2).
According to the 2010 American Community Survey, the median age in Hastings in 2010 was 36.7. By 2015 that number had risen to 39.5 and in 2020 it was 40.9.
Again, according to the American Community Survey, in 2010 the percentage of Hastings’ population over 60 was 17.7%. In 2015 it was 21.7%, and in 2020 it was 24.3%. According to the survey’s most recent data, which comes from 2023, almost a fourth of Hastings’ population is over 60 (24.6%).
The population of Hastings, like Minnesota and the United States broadly, is getting older.
Age was the first factor singled out by Tate as “one of the main issues that is out of our control” for declining enrollment. This issue, like many affecting enrollment, is structural and out of the hands of school officials: “We can’t do anything about that, obviously,” said Tate.
Households
Interestingly, even as the median age of Hastings residents has increased, the number of households with their own children under the age of 18 does not follow a steady decline.
Hastings data from the American Community Survey dates back to 2010. That year is the high-water mark for households with their own children under the age of 18 with an estimated 2,867 households.
The average family size in Hastings that year was 3.11, a similar high-water mark for Hastings data.
While the number of households with their own children under the age of 18 dropped in the early 2010s, from 2015-2020 that number grew by more than 300 households to the second-highest number on record with an estimated 2,795 households in 2020.
The largest drop in the number of households with their own children under the age of 18 occurred from 2020-2021. According to survey data, an estimated 350 households with their own children under the age of 18 left Hastings in 2021, a drop of nearly 14 percent.
This drop in households with children is echoed in the overall population of the city, which also experienced its largest decline on record that year as well, losing some 700 residents from 2020-2021.
The COVID-19 Pandemic can be seen here as a serious disruptor within demographic data, especially as it relates to enrollment, which from 2015-2020 saw some of the years with the smallest decline in enrollment in the past 20 years.
Since the pandemic, the number of households with their own children under 18 has dropped to its lowest point on record to an estimated 2,322 households in 2023.
Birth Rates
When it comes to birth rates in Hastings, numbers have plummeted.
The overall population in Hastings of women 15-50 – the population that is tracked on the American Community Survey for fertility – has dropped in recent years, down almost 10% from its peak in 2013 of an estimated 5,220 women to an estimated 4,749 women in 2023.
The estimated number of women 15-50 with a birth in the past 12 months in Hastings, however, has dropped by nearly 75% from its peak in 2012 of an estimated 367 women. In 2023 that number was estimated to be just 94.
Demographics and Enrollment
Despite a relatively stable overall population total, the population of Hastings has grown older, the number of households with their own children under the age of 18 has shrunk, and the number of women giving birth has plummeted.
The steady decline of students in Hastings Public Schools doesn’t necessarily fit neatly onto any one set of data, especially overall population, but combined can provide insight into why the district might be losing students.
For example, the two largest declines in ADM were in 2010-2011 and 2020-2021. These two years reflect the largest drops in households with their own children under the age of 18.
In 2012, the year with the lowest decline of students in the past 15 years, the district lost 23 students or 0.49%. That year coincides with the peak birth rate in town and the fourth highest estimated number of households with their own children under the age of 18.
Poverty, Income, and Housing
Poverty, income and housing are all also factors for a growing community and therefore for enrollment, but these largely don’t line up neatly with ISD 200’s enrollment numbers.
Currently, Hastings has an estimated poverty rate of 5.6%, almost half that of the national poverty rate of 11% and Minnesota’s poverty rate of 9.3%.
Hastings’ poverty has largely followed national and state trends, peaking in 2015 and steadily falling until the COVID-19 Pandemic, where it rose again.
In 2015, the year with the highest estimated poverty rate in Hastings over the last 15 years, the district saw the third smallest decline in enrollment on record losing only 30 students or a drop of 0.66%. Other years with low poverty rates in the city saw massive declines in enrollment like in 2021.
Income is another factor that affects where people live and where they send their children to school.
Median income for Hastings families in the last 12 months in 2023 inflation-adjusted dollars is $111,087 for 2023, according to the American Community Survey. That number has been rising since 2016, when it had been stalled at $76,000 since 2011.
Median income tracks neatly alongside households with own children under the age of 18, providing insight into the decline during the 2010s, and subsequent rise afterward.
According to the American Community Survey, from 2010-2016, median income for Hastings in 2023-adjusted dollars rose less than $2,000, from $74,924 in 2010 to $76,787 in 2016. This number falls well short of inflation, translating into an effective pay cut for Hastings residents receiving the median income.
Over that same time period, the number of households with own children dropped by more than 300 and only began to rise in 2016 as median income for Hastings did as well.
Housing availability and increasing the housing stock is another factor for enrollment. According to Hastings Community Development Director John Hinzman, while housing availability is important for the city, “a lot of it is market driven,” said Hinzman, relating to developers interested in projects within the city.
Hastings home ownership rates and the number of cost-burdened households also provide a view into why families might be leaving the district.
Home ownership has dropped since the turn of the century when in 2000 the homeownership rate in Hastings was 76.7%. The city has hovered between 72-75% in the years since with the low point estimated to be between 2014-2018, according to the American Community Survey.
It is worth noting that according to the Metropolitan Council Affordable Housing Production Survey, the number of new affordable rental and owner-occupied units added each year has dropped considerably after 2007. Where dozens of affordable units of both types were added each year before 2007, few have been added since then, especially for owner-occupied affordable housing.
This trend became quite clear during an April 2025 presentation on Hastings’ housing needs from Patrick Bowen of Bowen National Research.
Bowen showcased the median wages within job sectors that are common in Hastings including sales, food preparation/serving, and office and administrative. Based on the average two-bedroom apartment in Hastings with a monthly rent of $1,622, Bowen was able to see how workers in those fields would be able to afford housing.
Many couldn’t.
“A large portion of the area’s workforce does not have the income to reasonably afford rent in the market,” said Bowen.
To that point, more than 40% of renters and nearly 20% of homeowners are cost burdened. Cost-burdened households are those which spend 30% or more of their income on housing. That percentage translates to more than 2,200 households in Hastings being cost burdened.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the high cost of housing is in part due to high demand.
While Hastings had the highest vacancy rate within Dakota County at 9.6%, Bowen attributed that high number to recent openings of new buildings, with older buildings surveyed having little or no vacancy.
“While Hastings has an overall vacancy rate of 9.6%, this is primarily attributed to two recently opened market-rate projects. Virtually no vacant units exist among affordable rentals,” said Bowen.
The stock of houses for sale in Dakota County is also low. Bowen estimated the county has a 0.5% availability rate, less than a quarter of the typical healthy rate of 2-3%.
While it is hard to correlate housing prices and enrollment, the fact that both the median home price and gross rent in Hastings has more doubled since the year 2000 with the construction of affordable new housing units collapsing after 2007, housing has definitively become more difficult within the city than in previous decades.
Structural factors and enrollment
Structural and demographic issues within the Hastings community, from lack of housing to stagnated wages can be seen tied to families with children in the area and therefore to enrollment.
Beyond that, an aging population with nearly a quarter of Hastings residents over the age of 60, means that fewer Hastings residents are having children.
Other factors like job markets, lack of public transportation, and community appeal are hard to quantify but no doubt affect those numbers.
Next week will be the second half of this series focusing on district-specific factors like test scores, graduation rates, and competition from other schools as well as some of the efforts made by the school board designed to curb this trend.
