The declining school populations in part reflect a wider trend of depopulation of the outer-ring suburbs that is playing out across New Jersey and the Northeastern United States, according to Professor James Hughes, a senior faculty fellow at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers. The suburbs, where millennials were born and grew up, provided economic opportunities for their parents but have little to offer today’s 20- and 30-year olds. There are fewer children today than six years ago in almost all of the districts in Hunterdon, Sussex and Warren counties, and those that grow up there don’t want to stay there.
Meet the 2026 New Jersey Leadership Collective Fellows
New Jersey Leadership Collective’s mission is to train leaders who are committed to moving the communities they serve and the Garden State forward. They aim to make progressive change to legislation and policies through building collective power and taking collective...