Public schools and colleges in the United States
49,034,047 pupils attended 99,073 public schools in the fifty states and the District of Columbia in 2024–25, in 19,216 school districts. Their districts spent $16,398 per pupil in fiscal year 2023, and 5,581 colleges took federal student aid.
The country’s public schools, 2024–25
- 49.0 million
- Pupils
- 49,034,047
- Fall membership in 99,073 operational public schools, 8,048 of them charter schools.
- 15.2
- Pupils per teacher
- Over the 92,705 schools that report both counts; Tennessee reported no teachers.
- $16,398
- Spending per pupil
- Current spending by districts in fiscal year 2023, NCES's newest finance file, over fall membership.
- 5,581
- Colleges taking federal aid
- 26,632,638 students enrolled over twelve months, IPEDS 2025–26.
What stands out
Five findings. From NCES's Common Core of Data for 2024–25, its district finance survey for fiscal year 2023 and IPEDS, each one a row from a query.
The District of Columbia's school districts spent $30,462 per pupil in fiscal year 2023, 3.0 times Idaho's $10,147. Nationally it was $16,398. District of Columbia →
Current spending over fall membership, summed over every district in the state, as NCES divides it; capital outlay and debt are left out.
Public schools in California and Utah had 21.6 pupils for every full-time teacher in 2024–25, and Vermont had 10.8. Nationally the figure was 15.2. California and Utah →
Over the 92,705 schools that report both counts. Tennessee reported no teachers for 2024–25 and is left out.
The 100 largest public school districts enrolled 20.8% of public school pupils in 2024–25. The 100 largest districts →
They are ranked among the 17,800 districts that report enrollment, with New York City’s geographic districts counted as one; the others NCES lists enroll no pupils of their own: service agencies, supervisory unions and the like.
8,048 of 99,073 public schools were charter schools in 2024–25, enrolling 8.1% of pupils. In the District of Columbia it was 44.5%. Charter schools →
For-profit colleges were 36.6% of the 5,581 colleges that take federal student aid, and enrolled 7.3% of their 26,632,638 students in IPEDS's 2025–26 twelve-month enrollment collection. For-profit colleges →
Twelve-month enrollment counts everyone enrolled at any time in the year, so a student at two colleges is counted twice.
Enrollment and spending over time
Public school enrollment excluding pre-kindergarten fell by 1,427,961 from its peak in 2017–18 to 2024–25
Public school membership in the fifty states and DC each fall, 2014–15 to 2024–25: all grades, and excluding pre-kindergarten, which is the line the title reads.
Membership is the October 1 count of pupils on a school’s rolls, as the state reported it to NCES.
Where a year’s pre-kindergarten is not reported, its total is lower than NCES’s published one, which adds an estimate; the line excluding pre-kindergarten is unaffected.
Source: The College Scorecard and NCES
About this chart
The figures
| School year | All grades | Excluding pre-kindergarten | Pre-kindergarten |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014–15 | 50,312,581 | 48,943,226 | 1,369,355 |
| 2015–16 | 50,327,015 | 49,036,398 | 1,290,617 |
| 2016–17 | 50,587,859 | 49,189,535 | 1,398,324 |
| 2017–18 | 50,685,567 | 49,214,351 | 1,471,216 |
| 2018–19 | 50,694,061 | 49,154,386 | 1,539,675 |
| 2019–20 | 50,710,441 | 49,210,744 | 1,499,697 |
| 2020–21 | 49,356,945 | 48,132,778 | 1,224,167 |
| 2021–22 | 49,342,118 | 48,022,538 | 1,319,580 |
| 2022–23 | 49,514,913 | 48,090,266 | 1,424,647 |
| 2023–24 | 49,404,386 | 47,942,340 | 1,462,046 |
| 2024–25 | 49,269,882 | 47,786,390 | 1,483,492 |
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School districts spent $17,452 per pupil in fiscal year 2024, against $8,769 in 2005, in each year's dollars
Current spending per pupil, fiscal years 2005 to 2024: current spending over fall membership, summed over every district. In each year’s dollars, not adjusted for inflation.
Not adjusted for inflation: a dollar in 2005 bought more than a dollar in 2023, and this chart does not say how much more.
Each year is the release NCES has published for it: provisional for most, final for fiscal years 2019 to 2022. A final release revises the provisional one by well under 1% nationally.
Source: The College Scorecard and NCES
About this chart
The figures
| Fiscal year | Per pupil | Pupils | Release |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2005 | $8,769 | 48,414,912 | Provisional |
| FY2006 | $9,217 | 48,708,206 | Provisional |
| FY2007 | $9,748 | 48,852,324 | Provisional |
| FY2008 | $10,327 | 48,938,388 | Provisional |
| FY2009 | $10,476 | 48,979,385 | Provisional |
| FY2010 | $10,544 | 49,209,218 | Provisional |
| FY2011 | $10,557 | 49,310,483 | Provisional |
| FY2012 | $10,562 | 49,371,022 | Provisional |
| FY2013 | $10,650 | 49,580,861 | Provisional |
| FY2014 | $10,936 | 49,813,689 | Provisional |
| FY2015 | $11,318 | 50,059,080 | Provisional |
| FY2016 | $11,669 | 50,202,442 | Provisional |
| FY2017 | $12,089 | 50,381,631 | Provisional |
| FY2018 | $12,485 | 50,430,376 | Provisional |
| FY2019 | $13,038 | 50,428,499 | Final |
| FY2020 | $13,394 | 50,529,857 | Final |
| FY2021 | $14,185 | 49,182,997 | Final |
| FY2022 | $15,481 | 49,208,736 | Final |
| FY2023 | $16,398 | 49,405,826 | Provisional |
| FY2024 | $17,452 | 49,291,321 | Provisional |
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Every state: pupils, teachers and spending
Largest enrollment first. Pupils and teachers are for 2024–25; spending and revenue are for fiscal year 2023, NCES’s newest district finance file, so the two are three school years apart and are never divided into each other.
The District of Columbia's school districts spent $30,462 per pupil in fiscal year 2023, 3.0 times Idaho's $10,147
Current spending per pupil by public school districts in each state, fiscal year 2023: current spending over fall membership, summed over every district. Hatching marks a state whose districts took a larger share of their revenue from federal sources than districts did nationally.
Key: 5 shades, lightest to darkest: under $12,000; $12,000 to $15,000; $15,000 to $16,000; $16,000 to $20,000; $20,000 and over. crosshatched: not reported. hatched: federal share above the national 12.6%.
Nationally, districts spent $16,398 per pupil in fiscal year 2023, NCES's own figure (NCES 2025-305, Table 2).
In 28 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, districts took more than the national 12.6% of their revenue from federal sources.
Hawaii's public schools are one statewide district that the state runs and funds, and the District of Columbia has no state government, so neither has a state share of revenue that compares with other states.
Source: The College Scorecard and NCES
About this chart
The figures
| State | Per pupil | Current spending | Pupils | Federal share of revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | $30,462 | $2.8 billion | 91,001 | 11.6% |
| New York | $29,533 | $74.8 billion | 2,532,738 | 9.7% |
| Vermont | $26,292 | $2.2 billion | 83,369 | 9.7% |
| New Jersey | $26,090 | $36.1 billion | 1,383,785 | 7.4% |
| Connecticut | $24,743 | $12.4 billion | 499,918 | 8.1% |
| Massachusetts | $22,953 | $21.2 billion | 923,349 | 8.3% |
| Rhode Island | $21,093 | $2.9 billion | 137,318 | 14.2% |
| Delaware | $20,525 | $2.9 billion | 141,465 | 12.1% |
| New Hampshire | $20,500 | $3.5 billion | 168,294 | 8.3% |
| Alaska | $20,340 | $2.7 billion | 130,723 | 21.8% |
| Illinois | $20,174 | $37.4 billion | 1,852,242 | 10.4% |
| Hawaii | $20,056 | $3.4 billion | 170,209 | 10.7% |
| Pennsylvania | $19,834 | $33.2 billion | 1,674,348 | 10.4% |
| Wyoming | $19,306 | $1.8 billion | 92,465 | 14.2% |
| Maryland | $18,879 | $16.8 billion | 889,960 | 10.5% |
| Maine | $18,706 | $3.2 billion | 173,562 | 8.8% |
| California | $18,526 | $108.5 billion | 5,856,505 | 11.1% |
| Washington | $18,168 | $19.8 billion | 1,089,425 | 10.0% |
| Oregon | $17,108 | $9.4 billion | 552,314 | 9.7% |
| Michigan | $16,935 | $23.5 billion | 1,386,632 | 13.4% |
| Ohio | $16,186 | $27.2 billion | 1,680,632 | 13.8% |
| North Dakota | $16,125 | $1.9 billion | 118,513 | 17.1% |
| Virginia | $16,097 | $20.3 billion | 1,260,351 | 11.4% |
| Minnesota | $16,035 | $13.9 billion | 864,090 | 10.0% |
| New Mexico | $15,487 | $4.9 billion | 315,023 | 17.4% |
| Nebraska | $15,186 | $5.0 billion | 329,160 | 11.3% |
| Kansas | $14,885 | $7.3 billion | 487,965 | 12.9% |
| Colorado | $14,803 | $12.8 billion | 866,370 | 8.9% |
| Louisiana | $14,732 | $10.6 billion | 718,145 | 19.5% |
| Wisconsin | $14,704 | $12.1 billion | 823,040 | 12.5% |
| Kentucky | $14,613 | $9.6 billion | 660,029 | 17.2% |
| West Virginia | $14,582 | $3.7 billion | 251,224 | 18.7% |
| Georgia | $14,337 | $25.1 billion | 1,750,785 | 13.2% |
| South Carolina | $14,219 | $11.2 billion | 789,231 | 13.8% |
| Iowa | $13,789 | $7.1 billion | 511,297 | 10.4% |
| Montana | $13,765 | $2.1 billion | 150,098 | 18.3% |
| Missouri | $13,579 | $12.1 billion | 892,246 | 13.8% |
| Indiana | $13,080 | $13.6 billion | 1,035,947 | 13.0% |
| Alabama | $12,749 | $9.6 billion | 750,923 | 16.9% |
| Arkansas | $12,659 | $6.2 billion | 493,031 | 19.0% |
| North Carolina | $12,304 | $19.0 billion | 1,541,722 | 17.7% |
| Texas | $12,274 | $67.7 billion | 5,519,599 | 16.9% |
| Tennessee | $12,178 | $12.3 billion | 1,006,750 | 18.3% |
| Mississippi | $12,123 | $5.3 billion | 440,285 | 23.4% |
| South Dakota | $12,004 | $1.7 billion | 141,377 | 20.5% |
| Florida | $11,741 | $33.7 billion | 2,870,527 | 17.0% |
| Arizona | $11,231 | $12.5 billion | 1,113,202 | 18.1% |
| Nevada | $11,222 | $5.4 billion | 484,192 | 16.0% |
| Oklahoma | $10,995 | $7.7 billion | 701,301 | 16.5% |
| Utah | $10,229 | $7.1 billion | 691,906 | 9.4% |
| Idaho | $10,147 | $3.2 billion | 317,243 | 15.2% |
The fifty states and the District of Columbia
3 more columns on a wider screen
| State | Pupils | Schools |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 751,060 | 1,532 |
| Alaska | 127,890 | 488 |
| Arizona | 1,102,246 | 2,432 |
| Arkansas | 491,268 | 1,106 |
| California | 5,789,934 | 10,303 |
| Colorado | 865,055 | 1,900 |
| Connecticut | 490,969 | 1,007 |
| Delaware | 142,156 | 236 |
| District of Columbia | 94,038 | 245 |
| Florida | 2,856,320 | 4,186 |
| Georgia | 1,744,185 | 2,329 |
| Hawaii | 167,071 | 296 |
| Idaho | 315,191 | 796 |
| Illinois | 1,842,881 | 4,398 |
| Indiana | 1,037,604 | 1,919 |
| Iowa | 497,102 | 1,318 |
| Kansas | 477,006 | 1,341 |
| Kentucky | 655,997 | 1,550 |
| Louisiana | 666,840 | 1,308 |
| Maine | 166,127 | 589 |
| Maryland | 891,525 | 1,408 |
| Massachusetts | 915,932 | 1,823 |
| Michigan | 1,369,409 | 3,468 |
| Minnesota | 875,579 | 2,741 |
| Mississippi | 431,206 | 1,019 |
| Missouri | 885,243 | 2,451 |
| Montana | 147,049 | 842 |
| Nebraska | 330,483 | 1,097 |
| Nevada | 474,586 | 735 |
| New Hampshire | 162,945 | 501 |
| New Jersey | 1,355,569 | 2,557 |
| New Mexico | 304,084 | 879 |
| New York | 2,503,633 | 4,810 |
| North Carolina | 1,550,037 | 2,705 |
| North Dakota | 119,656 | 514 |
| Ohio | 1,661,295 | 3,543 |
| Oklahoma | 697,358 | 1,781 |
| Oregon | 539,417 | 1,291 |
| Pennsylvania | 1,666,699 | 2,932 |
| Rhode Island | 133,879 | 313 |
| South Carolina | 796,780 | 1,277 |
| South Dakota | 140,592 | 706 |
| Tennessee | 1,002,363 | 1,913 |
| Texas | 5,545,640 | 9,192 |
| Utah | 684,604 | 1,097 |
| Vermont | 77,756 | 304 |
| Virginia | 1,257,315 | 2,126 |
| Washington | 1,094,502 | 2,543 |
| West Virginia | 242,155 | 676 |
| Wisconsin | 805,901 | 2,190 |
| Wyoming | 89,915 | 360 |
Outside the fifty states and DC
NCES’s files also cover 1,164 operational schools and 309,477 pupils in the territories and the Bureau of Indian Education, which have no state page here and are not in the figures above: Puerto Rico, 862 schools; BI, 174 schools; Guam, 45 schools; Northern Mariana Islands, 35 schools; American Samoa, 28 schools; U.S. Virgin Islands, 20 schools.
City, suburb, town and rural schools
NCES places every school in one of twelve locales from its address; this table groups them into the four kinds. 2024–25, the fifty states and DC.
2 more columns on a wider screen
| Locale | Schools | Share of schools |
|---|---|---|
| City | 27,858 | 28.1% |
| Suburb | 30,344 | 30.6% |
| Town | 11,558 | 11.7% |
| Rural | 29,313 | 29.6% |
Colleges that take federal student aid
Every institution in NCES’s IPEDS universe for 2025–26 in the fifty states and DC: 2,619 four-year, 1,404 two-year and 1,558 that award certificates of under two years. Another 130 are in the territories. Twelve-month enrollment counts everyone enrolled at any time in the year.
1 more column on a wider screen
| Control | Colleges | Twelve-month enrollment |
|---|---|---|
| Public | 1,865 | 19,161,326 |
| Private nonprofit | 1,672 | 5,529,173 |
| Private for-profit | 2,044 | 1,942,139 |
Rankings
Analysis
Each brief is prose written around values a query returned. Every figure in one is re-checked against its query before it can merge, so a number in the text cannot drift from the data behind it.
Public school enrollment fell in 40 states after 2019–20
Public schools in the fifty states and the District of Columbia enrolled 47,786,390 students from kindergarten to grade twelve in 2024–25, 1,424,354 fewer than the 49,210,744 of 2019–20: a fall of 2.9%.
American Factbook Research · September 25, 2026
Everything in this hub
Every page in this topic, by kind.
Questions
6One question per page, answered in the first sentence with the figure.
Rankings
3Each list ordered by one measure, with the figure behind every entry.
Law, medical, dental, pharmacy, veterinary, business and engineering schools: the colleges of each type, ranked by the degrees each awarded, from NCES.
States
51Public schools, pupils and teachers in each state, its largest districts, what its districts spend per pupil and where the money comes from, and its colleges.
Colleges
5,581Each college that takes federal student aid, from IPEDS, with the College Scorecard's outcomes where it has them. Listed by state, then by name.
School districts
19,216Each operational public school district: its schools, pupils and teachers. Listed by state, then by name.
Public schools
99,073Each operational public school as NCES's Common Core of Data records it: its pupils, teachers and grades. Listed by state, then by name.
Sources
- NCES School District Finance Survey (F-33) — newest fiscal year — National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education · U.S. Government work · retrieved September 25, 2026
- NCES Common Core of Data — public school membership by state, 2014–15 onwards · U.S. Government work
- NCES Common Core of Data — public school districts, newest full school year
- NCES Common Core of Data — public schools, newest full school year · U.S. Government work
- IPEDS — every postsecondary institution, with NCES's derived headline measures · U.S. Government work
- NCES School District Finance Survey (F-33) — every fiscal year in the current format · U.S. Government work · retrieved September 30, 2026
Compiled automatically from NCES School District Finance Survey (F-33) — newest fiscal year, NCES Common Core of Data — public school membership by state, 2014–15 onwards, NCES Common Core of Data — public school districts, newest full school year, NCES Common Core of Data — public schools, newest full school year, IPEDS — every postsecondary institution, with NCES's derived headline measures and NCES School District Finance Survey (F-33) — every fiscal year in the current format by a checked SQL query · Editor: Kian O'Connor · How this site is built
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), “Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey” and “Local Education Agency Universe Survey,” 2024–25; “School District Finance Survey (F-33),” fiscal year 2023; Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).
Data retrieved