Analysis: What Happens to Our Schools If We Don’t Build Housing
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By David Greenwald April 30, 2026
Davis Faces a School Enrollment Crisis Rooted in Housing, Demographics and Hard Fiscal Math
DAVIS, Calif. — Davis Joint Unified School District faces a long-term enrollment decline that is no longer hypothetical, and the implications now extend beyond spreadsheets and projections to the likely closure of schools, reductions in programming and a broader reckoning over whether the city has built enough housing for families.
The district’s latest demographic report, prepared by MGT and released April 1, 2026, projects resident student enrollment will fall from about 6,944 students in 2025 to about 5,693 by 2035.
The report says the forecast is shaped by three major factors: birth rates, mobility and student yield factors. It also warns that the findings are subject to change based on population shifts, development plans, funding opportunities and district priorities.
That projection follows years of concern inside the district and across the community. Superintendent Matt Best has described the problem as both immediate and structural, saying the connection between schools and housing is no longer abstract.
“This is a matter of will,” Best told the Vanguard in a 2025 interview. “We’re not here to advocate for a particular project or type of housing, but we are here to make the consequences of inaction clear. The connection between housing and schools isn’t just abstract—it’s immediate, it’s financial, and it’s human.”
The core problem is that Davis has fewer children entering the system and too few families moving into the community to offset that decline. Birth rates in Davis have fallen sharply, from more than 600 in 2003 to 346 in 2023, while kindergarten classes have thinned and enrollment losses are expected to echo upward through the grades over the next decade.
“The pipeline has slowed,” Best said. “And without new housing to attract young families, we’re heading into a prolonged decline.”
The district has already relied heavily on students who do not live within district boundaries. More than 1,200 students, nearly 15 percent of DJUSD enrollment, come from outside the district, many of them children of UC Davis staff and other local employees who work in Davis but cannot afford to live in the city.
That workaround has limits. A school district cannot indefinitely stabilize itself by importing students from workers who have been priced out of the community. Nor can it assume that interdistrict transfers will permanently offset the demographic consequences of a city that has not produced enough housing for families.
The MGT report says housing development directly affects enrollment outcomes, noting that “a district can maintain stability or expansion by fostering adequate development to counterbalance the decreasing birth trend.”
The report also says that for every 100 single-family detached homes built in the past five years, DJUSD gains about 44 school-aged children.
For every 100 multifamily attached homes, such as townhomes, the district gains about 12 students, while apartments generate about five students per 100 units.
Not every housing unit produces students equally; outcomes depend on the type, location, affordability and timing of the development.
Detached homes, townhomes and ownership-oriented family housing tend to produce more students than student apartments or age-restricted housing, while affordable family housing may produce higher yields.
Davis has failed to keep pace with that need.
Since 2005, the city has added only about 805 single-family homes, while much of the multifamily housing built during that period was designed for UC Davis students rather than families. Those projects helped relieve pressure in the student rental market, but they did not substantially replenish the family base that supports the public school system.
The result is a city that appears young due to its large university population, while lacking sufficient households in the family-forming years.
Vanguard analysis has previously described this as a hollowing out of the middle of the community: students cycle through, older homeowners remain, and the households most likely to have children in local schools are squeezed out by price and scarcity.
There are serious fiscal consequences—and despite popular belief, they will not be solved through closing a school or two.
The problem lies in how districts obtain revenue from the state.
DJUSD is funded through average daily attendance, meaning every lost student reduces revenue. Best said each lost student represents roughly $12,000 in annual revenue, and the district has already cut $7.5 million over four years in response to enrollment losses. With the district expecting to lose about 100 students a year, those losses could double in the years ahead.
School closures are now part of the discussion. District officials have warned that if neither Village Farms nor Willowgrove moves forward, at least two schools could close by 2027-28. If one project moves forward, that number could be reduced to one.
But closing schools is not a solution to declining enrollment, rather it is a fiscal response to a smaller system, not a strategy for rebuilding the student base, as Best made clear.
“You don’t save a dollar for every dollar of enrollment loss,” he said. “You might save 60 cents—and only after years of contraction.”
That gap exists in part because school districts have fixed costs. They still need administrators, maintenance, utilities, transportation, safety staff, nurses and other basic operations even as enrollment drops.
When students disappear gradually across campuses, grades and programs, districts cannot neatly eliminate costs in the same proportion.
“Chasing enrollment loss year after year just puts us in a perpetual cutting cycle,” Best said. “You don’t stabilize—you bleed.”
That is why school closures, while possibly unavoidable, function as a band-aid.
Closing a campus may reduce operating costs, but it does not produce new students. It may also create boundary conflicts, disrupt families, force program consolidation and damage neighborhood identity.
The district may save money while still losing revenue year after year if the underlying enrollment decline continues.
Best has also warned against acting too quickly if housing decisions remain unresolved.
“That’s the last thing we want to do,” Best said. “Especially if we close a school and then 18 months later a housing project is approved and we have to reopen it again.”
The consequences of declining enrollment go beyond facilities.
When districts shrink, they often cut the programs that make schools attractive in the first place: arts, athletics, electives, counseling and enrichment. Those reductions can make the district less attractive to families, creating a feedback loop in which fewer students lead to fewer offerings, which then makes it harder to attract or retain families.
That is why the question facing Davis is larger than whether to close a school.
The real question is whether the community is willing to align its housing decisions with the future it says it wants for its schools.
Village Farms and Willowgrove are central to that debate.
Prior analyses using district yield assumptions estimated Village Farms could generate roughly 700 students when fully built out, while Willowgrove could also add several hundred students depending on final unit mix, pricing, occupancy and phasing. Together, the projects have been described as potentially adding up to 1,000 students over time.
Those students wouldn’t show up all at once—housing builds out over time, families move in gradually and the demographic impact takes years, but the numbers are large enough to shape the long-term trend, especially compared to relying on declining birth rates, transfers and ongoing cuts.
Should Davis build housing to save the schools?
That question is ultimately in the hands of voters, particularly because Davis voters retain decisive control over peripheral growth decisions.
The argument for housing should not be reduced solely to saving DJUSD, but schools are a major public good. Strong schools support neighborhoods, property values, civic life, youth programs and the broader identity of Davis.
At the same time, there are reasons beyond schools to build housing.
Davis faces state housing demands, including RHNA obligations.
The city must plan for housing not only for students but for teachers, nurses, public employees, young professionals, working families and adult children who grew up in Davis and want to return.
If Davis rejects major family-oriented housing, it should do so with the understanding that school enrollment and district finances will likely remain under pressure. If the community wants strong schools, generational continuity and a more balanced population, it must also answer where future families are supposed to live.
Best framed the issue as one of public notice and accountability.
“What we hear over and over again is, ‘We didn’t know. No one told us that voting down a housing project would impact schools,’” Best said. “Well, now we’re telling you. Loudly.”
The district cannot build housing. It can adjust boundaries, consolidate campuses, reduce programs, pursue workforce housing and plan for declining enrollment. But it cannot, on its own, reverse the demographic conditions that are shrinking its student base.
“You can’t program your way out of a housing shortage,” Best said.
Summary: Davis faces declining enrollment; the decline is tied to the city’s failure to produce enough family-oriented housing; school closures are increasingly likely; closures may reduce costs but will not stop the demographic bleeding; declining enrollment weakens schools by reducing revenue, programs and stability; and the broader community must decide whether housing growth is part of preserving the institutions that have long defined Davis.
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