Question

Student enrollment at a local school is concerning the community because the number of students has dropped to 504, which is a 20% decrease from the previous year. What was the student enrollment the previous year?

Answer 1

Answer: The student enrollment the previous year was 630.

Step-by-step explanation: What we have currently is 504 students which represents 80 percent of the previous total number of students. We can conclude this because the question states clearly that the student enrollment dropped by 20 percent. In other words, we need to add back 20 percent to 80 percent to get the total 100 percent student enrollment from the previous year. The total number of students can be derived as follows;

If 504 equals 80 percent or (0.8), then 504 divided by 4 gives us 20 percent or (0.2)

20 percent times 5 equals 100 percent (or 0.2 times 5 equals 1)

Hence the calculation becomes;

(504/4) x 5 = Total

126 x 5 = 630

Therefore the total number of students enrollment the previous year was 630.