Skip to content

Public schools in Michigan

1,369,409 pupils attended 3,468 public schools in Michigan in 2024–25, in 882 school districts. Its districts spent $16,935 per pupil in fiscal year 2023, against $16,398 nationally.

Michigan, 2024–25

1.4 million
Pupils
1,369,409
2.8% of the nation's public school pupils.
3,468
Public schools
Operational public schools in NCES’s 2024–25 directory.
16.5
Pupils per teacher
Over the 3,373 schools that report both counts; nationally 15.2.
368
Charter schools
11.3% of pupils.
$16,935
Spending per pupil
Current spending over fall membership, fiscal year 2023.

Michigan over time

Michigan's public school enrollment excluding pre-kindergarten fell by 123,264 from its peak in 2014–⁠15 to 2024–⁠25

Public school membership in Michigan 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.

Every year here reports its pre-kindergarten pupils.

National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education — NCES Common Core of Data — public school membership by state, 2014–15 onwards

The figures behind this chart
Michigan's public school enrollment excluding pre-kindergarten fell by 123,264 from its peak in 2014–15 to 2024–25. Public school membership in Michigan each fall, 2014–15 to 2024–25: all grades, and excluding pre-kindergarten, which is the line the title reads.
School yearAll gradesExcluding pre-kindergartenPre-kindergarten
2014–⁠151,537,9221,493,31544,607
2015–⁠161,536,2311,487,27048,961
2016–⁠171,528,6661,480,25048,416
2017–⁠181,516,3981,472,14044,258
2018–⁠191,504,1941,457,12547,069
2019–⁠201,495,9251,448,31147,614
2020–⁠211,434,1371,402,28431,853
2021–⁠221,440,0901,396,62043,470
2022–⁠231,433,9141,387,74446,170
2023–⁠241,426,4911,377,49848,993
2024–⁠251,423,9331,370,05153,882
Embed this chart

Paste this where you want the chart. The picture carries its title, source and credit, under the site’s license.

Michigan's school districts spent $16,935 per pupil in fiscal year 2023, against $9,441 in 2005, in each year's dollars

Current spending per pupil in Michigan, fiscal years 2005 to 2023: 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.

National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education — NCES School District Finance Survey (F-33) — every fiscal year in the current format

The figures behind this chart
Michigan's school districts spent $16,935 per pupil in fiscal year 2023, against $9,441 in 2005, in each year's dollars. Current spending per pupil in Michigan, fiscal years 2005 to 2023: current spending over fall membership, summed over every district. In each year’s dollars, not adjusted for inflation.
Fiscal yearPer pupilPupilsRelease
FY2005$9,4411,728,911Provisional
FY2006$9,6431,726,809Provisional
FY2007$9,9801,700,281Provisional
FY2008$10,1461,677,241Provisional
FY2009$10,4731,641,393Provisional
FY2010$10,5831,622,646Provisional
FY2011$10,6571,569,723Provisional
FY2012$10,6851,539,981Provisional
FY2013$10,7591,518,245Provisional
FY2014$10,9121,509,447Provisional
FY2015$11,2481,493,826Provisional
FY2016$11,3931,487,417Provisional
FY2017$11,6111,480,504Provisional
FY2018$12,0251,472,426Provisional
FY2019$12,4291,456,879Final
FY2020$12,7231,447,011Final
FY2021$13,6411,399,862Final
FY2022$15,2781,395,111Final
FY2023$16,9351,386,632Provisional
Embed this chart

Paste this where you want the chart. The picture carries its title, source and credit, under the site’s license.

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

Revenue of all 902 districts in NCES’s finance file, by source. Nationally, 12.6% came from federal sources.

State sources gave Michigan's school districts 53.0% of their revenue in fiscal year 2023

Revenue of Michigan's public school districts by source, fiscal year 2023, as a share of their total revenue.

National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education — NCES School District Finance Survey (F-33) — newest fiscal year

The figures behind this chart
State sources gave Michigan's school districts 53.0% of their revenue in fiscal year 2023. Revenue of Michigan's public school districts by source, fiscal year 2023, as a share of their total revenue.
SourceRevenueShare of revenue
Federal$4.1 billion13.4%
State$16.4 billion53.0%
Local$10.4 billion33.6%
Embed this chart

Paste this where you want the chart. The picture carries its title, source and credit, under the site’s license.

The largest districts in Michigan

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.

2 more columns on a wider screen

The 10 largest public school districts in Michigan, 2024–25
DistrictPupilsSchools
Detroit Public Schools Community District48,828104
Utica Community Schools25,29737
Dearborn City School District19,26237
Ann Arbor Public Schools16,87132
Plymouth-Canton Community Schools16,08323
Rochester Community School District14,86821
Chippewa Valley Schools14,27620
Grand Rapids Public Schools13,69248
Livonia Public Schools School District13,07625
Warren Consolidated Schools12,56423

City, suburb, town and rural schools in Michigan

43.4% of Michigan's public school pupils attended suburban schools in 2024–⁠25

Pupils in Michigan's operational public schools by the kind of place each school is in, 2024–⁠25: NCES's twelve locales grouped into city, suburb, town and rural.

National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education — NCES Common Core of Data — public schools, newest full school year

The figures behind this chart
43.4% of Michigan's public school pupils attended suburban schools in 2024–25. Pupils in Michigan's operational public schools by the kind of place each school is in, 2024–25: NCES's twelve locales grouped into city, suburb, town and rural.
LocaleSchoolsShare of schoolsPupilsShare of pupils
City76622.1%318,31023.2%
Suburb1,28537.1%593,95143.4%
Town41111.9%146,33310.7%
Rural1,00629.0%310,81522.7%
Embed this chart

Paste this where you want the chart. The picture carries its title, source and credit, under the site’s license.

Colleges in Michigan that take federal student aid

154 colleges in Michigan are in NCES’s IPEDS universe for 2025–26: 47 public, 39 private nonprofit and 68 private for-profit. They enrolled 618,841 students over twelve months and awarded 54,775 bachelor’s degrees.

Michigan elsewhere on the Factbook

  • Reported crimeCrime and justice

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

  • Most dangerous cities in MichiganCrime 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 Michigan 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.

Sources

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), 2024–25; “School District Finance Survey (F-33),” fiscal year 2023; Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).

Data retrieved