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Public schools in Minnesota

875,579 pupils attended 2,741 public schools in Minnesota in 2024–25, in 567 school districts. Its districts spent $16,035 per pupil in fiscal year 2023, against $16,398 nationally.

Minnesota, 2024–25

875.6 thousand
Pupils
875,579
1.8% of the nation's public school pupils.
2,741
Public schools
Operational public schools in NCES’s 2024–25 directory.
14.9
Pupils per teacher
Over the 2,192 schools that report both counts; nationally 15.2.
309
Charter schools
8.2% of pupils.
$16,035
Spending per pupil
Current spending over fall membership, fiscal year 2023.

Minnesota over time

Minnesota's public school enrollment excluding pre-kindergarten fell by 20,916 from its peak in 2019–⁠20 to 2024–⁠25

Public school membership in Minnesota 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
Minnesota's public school enrollment excluding pre-kindergarten fell by 20,916 from its peak in 2019–20 to 2024–25. Public school membership in Minnesota 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
2014–⁠15857,235842,25814,977
2015–⁠16864,384848,94115,443
2016–⁠17875,021856,06118,960
2017–⁠18884,944862,25222,692
2018–⁠19889,304864,83824,466
2019–⁠20893,203867,99925,204
2020–⁠21872,083850,76521,318
2021–⁠22870,506848,61921,887
2022–⁠23870,019846,19223,827
2023–⁠24869,967844,76725,200
2024–⁠25876,182847,08329,099

Minnesota's school districts spent $16,035 per pupil in fiscal year 2023, against $8,722 in 2005, in each year's dollars

Current spending per pupil in Minnesota, 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
Minnesota's school districts spent $16,035 per pupil in fiscal year 2023, against $8,722 in 2005, in each year's dollars. Current spending per pupil in Minnesota, 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$8,722831,566Provisional
FY2006$9,192832,361Provisional
FY2007$9,569835,550Provisional
FY2008$10,125835,682Provisional
FY2009$11,061833,507Provisional
FY2010$10,656834,116Provisional
FY2011$10,665835,228Provisional
FY2012$10,743839,073Provisional
FY2013$11,028844,396Provisional
FY2014$11,407848,821Provisional
FY2015$11,899855,084Provisional
FY2016$12,332862,222Provisional
FY2017$12,610873,082Provisional
FY2018$12,935879,470Provisional
FY2019$13,331883,294Final
FY2020$13,537886,837Final
FY2021$14,244865,943Final
FY2022$15,363864,743Final
FY2023$16,035864,090Provisional

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

Revenue of all 597 districts in NCES’s finance file, by source. Nationally, 12.6% came from federal sources.

State sources gave Minnesota's school districts 59.9% of their revenue in fiscal year 2023

Revenue of Minnesota'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 Minnesota's school districts 59.9% of their revenue in fiscal year 2023. Revenue of Minnesota's public school districts by source, fiscal year 2023, as a share of their total revenue.
SourceRevenueShare of revenue
Federal$1.7 billion10.0%
State$10.1 billion59.9%
Local$5.1 billion30.0%

The largest districts in Minnesota

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.

The 10 largest public school districts in Minnesota, 2024–25
DistrictPupilsSchoolsPupils per teacherSpending per pupil, fiscal year 2023
Anoka-Hennepin School District38,3545315.1$15,130
Saint Paul Public Schools33,0418814.8$21,634
Minneapolis Public School District29,9289611.9$21,839
Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan29,2244015.5$15,334
Osseo Public School District21,1383415.5$16,345
South Washington County Schools19,5782916.9$13,992
Rochester Public School District17,17147$14,804
Elk River Public School District14,5772820.2$12,958
Wayzata Public School District12,9512117.4$14,820
Lakeville Area Schools12,0252216.9$14,882

City, suburb, town and rural schools in Minnesota

32.7% of Minnesota's public school pupils attended suburban schools in 2024–⁠25

Pupils in Minnesota'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
32.7% of Minnesota's public school pupils attended suburban schools in 2024–25. Pupils in Minnesota'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
City61822.5%217,27824.8%
Suburb68124.8%286,69632.7%
Town51418.8%148,73017.0%
Rural92833.9%222,87525.5%

Colleges in Minnesota that take federal student aid

90 colleges in Minnesota are in NCES’s IPEDS universe for 2025–26: 40 public, 35 private nonprofit and 15 private for-profit. They enrolled 569,408 students over twelve months and awarded 42,579 bachelor’s degrees.

Minnesota elsewhere on the Factbook

  • Reported crimeCrime and justice

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

  • Most dangerous cities in MinnesotaCrime 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.

  • The Minnesota 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