Public schools in California

California, 2024–25

5.8 million

Pupils

5,789,934

11.8% of the nation's public school pupils.

10,303

Public schools

Operational public schools in NCES’s 2024–25 directory.

21.6

Pupils per teacher

Over the 9,949 schools that report both counts; nationally 15.2.

1,276

Charter schools

12.5% of pupils.

$18,526

Spending per pupil

Current spending over fall membership, fiscal year 2023.

California over time

Where California’s districts got their money, fiscal year 2023

Revenue of all 2,144 districts in NCES’s finance file, by source. Nationally, 12.6% came from federal sources.

The largest districts in California

By fall membership in 2024–25. Spending per pupil is the same district’s fiscal year 2023 figure from NCES’s finance file, where it reports one.

City, suburb, town and rural schools in California

Colleges in California that take federal student aid

614 colleges in California are in NCES’s IPEDS universe for 2025–26: 166 public, 151 private nonprofit and 297 private for-profit. They enrolled 3,741,457 students over twelve months and awarded 214,394 bachelor’s degrees.

California elsewhere on the Factbook

• Reported crimeCrime and justice

  Offenses reported to police by type, the trend, and the reporting coverage.

• Most dangerous cities in CaliforniaCrime and justice

  What each agency serving 25,000 or more reported, ranked. Agency populations overlap, so these do not add up to the state.

• Prison populationCrime and justice

  People held under the state’s correctional authority, and the imprisonment rate. A different publisher counting a different thing.

• Arrests by race, sex and ageCrime and justice

  Arrests as the FBI’s participating agencies reported them, with what the figures can and cannot support at the top.

• Hate crimeCrime and justice

  Incidents reported to the FBI by bias motivation, as counts — the collection publishes no participation share, so there is no rate to compare states on.

• Federal obligationsFederal spending

  What federal agencies obligated against a place of performance in the state, per resident and by agency.

• Registered nonprofitsNonprofits

  How many organizations the IRS lists in the state, what they report as revenue, and which kinds of work they do.

• Payments to doctorsHealth

  What drug and device companies reported paying doctors with a practice address in the state, and the largest recipients.

• Immigration courtsImmigration and the border

  The EOIR courts sitting in the state, what they completed and still have pending, and how far apart their asylum grant rates are. The courts, not the state’s residents: a detention court hears cases from far outside it.

• Farm program paymentsFarm subsidies

  What the Farm Service Agency paid through the state’s county offices, by program and by recipient. The offices that administered the payments, not a count of farms: a recipient addressed elsewhere is counted where they were paid.

• Paycheck Protection Program loansPPP loans

  The PPP loans SBA guaranteed to businesses operating in the state, by county, with how many carry a forgiveness amount and how many were charged off. Loans, not businesses: a business with two draws is two loans.

• Federal civilian workforceFederal salaries

  Federal civilian employees stationed in the state by agency and occupation, with the pay OPM publishes and the share it withholds.

• The California Factbook entryAcross the Factbook

  Every measure the Factbook publishes for this state in one place, each with where it ranks among the others and the record it came from.

The immigration link above is EOIR’s courts, which sit in this state. CBP’s encounters are not by state and will not be: its sectors and field offices are areas of responsibility rather than a geography, and assigning them to states would be a claim the data does not make. Immigration and the border.