Sorry PBA, but I did think of it. I specifically addressed “kids” not young adults before they are married. You can choose to ignore the higher grades if you so desire. As mentioned in the census report it’s NOT JUST in high school when the enrollment numbers begin to drop off. It’s from 5 year olds as the starting point all the way up. We need real data, and although incomplete for our purposes there’s a lot of relevant info. in that report.
I’ll quote (from the actual page 10, PDF page 18)
“ENROLLMENT BY GRADE
cohort through the 12th grade, at each higher grade level there is a decrease in enrollment. In the aggregate, over the span
of the elementary school grades, the enrollment increase is significant. Thus, the five-year-old cohort has 24,000 students, while the 8th grade enrollment amounted to about 16,000 or about two-thirds of the number in the five-year-old group. If we calculate enrollment from the five-year-old group through the 12th grade, the increase across the span of years is 100%, as five-year-old enrollment is double 12th grade enrollment.”
There’s the exact breakdown later. Incidentally, have you read the report yourself?