NY Yeshivos & Jewish Day Schools See Significant Uptick in Enrollment in Last 2 Decades
Edited by: TJVNews.com
On Tuesday, Yeshiva World News reported that OJPAC released statistics it obtained from the New York State Education Department showing massive increases in the number of students enrolled in yeshivas over the past 20 years.
In September 2001, yeshivos had fewer than 100,000 students, yet by September 2021, those numbers rose to more than 160,000 – a staggering 60% increase. YWN reported that jump is largely being attributed to a 200% increase in Yeshiva students in Orange County and a 144% increase in Rockland County – the counties of Kiryas Joel and Monsey, respectively.
In Brooklyn, the number of yeshiva enrollees grew by 46% over the past two decades, not quite as stunning as Orange and Rockland, but still quite impressive, according to the YWN report.
Over the past ten years, enrollment in yeshivos has increased by 63.2% in Rockland, 53.5% in Orange, 34.4% in Queens, 12.6% in Brooklyn, and 24.5% statewide.
According to an October 2021 report on the eJewishPhilanthropy.com web site, Prizmah: the Center for Jewish Day Schools indicated that due to the demographical shifts that were brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a significant uptick in yeshiva and Jewish day school enrollment.
Citing Prizmah, the report said that Jewish day schools are witnessing a nearly 4% increase after more than a decade of declining enrollment numbers.
Speaking to eJewishPhilanthropy.com, Prizmah CEO Paul Bernstein said that the “increase was driven in large part by the 80% of families who moved their children from public schools into Jewish day schools during the pandemic and decided to keep them there.”
“These families realized that the experience their kids could have in Jewish day school was an incredibly rich one,” Bernstein said, noting that the families who are staying moved their children originally out of desperation at the deterioration of the quality of education wrought by the pandemic on many public schools, as was reported on the eJewishphilanthropy.com web site.
Ann Pava, who has served as Prizmah’s board chair, told eJewishphilanthropy.com that the total population of day schools and yeshivas served by Prizmah now numbers 85,000 due to the increase of 3,100 new students in the last two years. Philanthropists — both longtime supporters of Jewish schools and newcomers — see the 3.7% increase as an indication that Jewish schools are a good investment.
Bernstein said, “South Florida is booming. We know that. There’s an increase in enrollment there of over 8%. Some schools in New York City are experiencing tough times because people have moved.”
