Policy Insights | Student Migration: Relief Valve for State Enrollment and Demographic Pressures

Many states confront simultaneous enrollment and fiscal pressures. Some states have or are forecasted to have too many students while others face the opposite problem. In the face of these challenges, student migration should be examined as an appropriate and viable policy tool. Helping students migrate between states that face opposing enrollment problems makes sense. Students already migrate between states in large numbers and several regional and/or national programs exist to facilitate such migration. Such programs are growing in popularity. Research on student migration points to several factors that should play an important role in policymakers’ decisions to use such programs to facilitate migration, particularly given the projected growth in states with large numbers of underrepresented students. This edition of Policy Insights explores this issue.