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Public schools in Missouri

885,243 pupils attended 2,451 public schools in Missouri in 2024–25, in 565 school districts. Its districts spent $13,579 per pupil in fiscal year 2023, against $16,398 nationally.

Missouri, 2024–25

885.2 thousand
Pupils
885,243
1.8% of the nation's public school pupils.
2,451
Public schools
Operational public schools in NCES’s 2024–25 directory.
12.6
Pupils per teacher
Over the 2,384 schools that report both counts; nationally 15.2.
81
Charter schools
2.9% of pupils.
$13,579
Spending per pupil
Current spending over fall membership, fiscal year 2023.

Missouri over time

Missouri's public school enrollment excluding pre-kindergarten fell by 34,264 from its peak in 2014–⁠15 to 2024–⁠25

Public school membership in Missouri 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
Missouri's public school enrollment excluding pre-kindergarten fell by 34,264 from its peak in 2014–15 to 2024–25. Public school membership in Missouri 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
2014–⁠15917,785886,63231,153
2015–⁠16919,234885,87433,360
2016–⁠17915,040883,23231,808
2017–⁠18915,472882,41833,054
2018–⁠19913,441879,72033,721
2019–⁠20910,466876,35734,109
2020–⁠21882,477855,19827,279
2021–⁠22888,823857,61931,204
2022–⁠23892,246857,06535,181
2023–⁠24891,248855,57335,675
2024–⁠25889,059852,36836,691

Missouri's school districts spent $13,579 per pupil in fiscal year 2023, against $7,729 in 2005, in each year's dollars

Current spending per pupil in Missouri, 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
Missouri's school districts spent $13,579 per pupil in fiscal year 2023, against $7,729 in 2005, in each year's dollars. Current spending per pupil in Missouri, 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$7,729902,659Provisional
FY2006$8,126913,765Provisional
FY2007$8,561916,258Provisional
FY2008$9,254912,932Provisional
FY2009$9,601910,972Provisional
FY2010$9,636917,812Provisional
FY2011$9,431918,710Provisional
FY2012$9,420916,582Provisional
FY2013$9,615917,777Provisional
FY2014$9,856918,288Provisional
FY2015$10,125918,987Provisional
FY2016$10,291919,135Provisional
FY2017$10,582914,964Provisional
FY2018$10,941915,412Provisional
FY2019$11,229913,441Final
FY2020$11,281911,254Final
FY2021$11,877882,477Final
FY2022$12,713888,817Final
FY2023$13,579892,246Provisional

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

Revenue of all 567 districts in NCES’s finance file, by source. Nationally, 12.6% came from federal sources.

Local sources gave Missouri's school districts 58.2% of their revenue in fiscal year 2023

Revenue of Missouri'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
Local sources gave Missouri's school districts 58.2% of their revenue in fiscal year 2023. Revenue of Missouri's public school districts by source, fiscal year 2023, as a share of their total revenue.
SourceRevenueShare of revenue
Federal$2.1 billion13.8%
State$4.3 billion28.0%
Local$8.9 billion58.2%

The largest districts in Missouri

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 Missouri, 2024–25
DistrictPupilsSchoolsPupils per teacherSpending per pupil, fiscal year 2023
Springfield R-Xii24,2855613.9$14,461
North Kansas City 7421,2523414.1$14,136
Rockwood R-VI19,5973114.2$12,527
Columbia 9318,6403612.8$13,936
Wentzville R-Iv17,9732113.9$12,463
ST. Louis City17,9336811.4$22,979
Lee's Summit R-Vii17,8702914.6$13,841
Francis Howell R-Iii17,0472314.9$12,462
Parkway C-216,7592914.1$13,983
Fort Zumwalt School District16,6982712.7$13,648

City, suburb, town and rural schools in Missouri

34.0% of Missouri's public school pupils attended suburban schools in 2024–⁠25

Pupils in Missouri'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
34.0% of Missouri's public school pupils attended suburban schools in 2024–25. Pupils in Missouri'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
City43317.7%167,04618.9%
Suburb55722.7%301,25334.0%
Town40616.6%166,62918.8%
Rural1,05543.0%250,31528.3%

Colleges in Missouri that take federal student aid

134 colleges in Missouri are in NCES’s IPEDS universe for 2025–26: 41 public, 52 private nonprofit and 41 private for-profit. They enrolled 423,623 students over twelve months and awarded 33,653 bachelor’s degrees.

Missouri elsewhere on the Factbook

  • Reported crimeCrime and justice

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

  • Most dangerous cities in MissouriCrime 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 Missouri 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