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Public schools in Montana

147,049 pupils attended 842 public schools in Montana in 2024–25, in 476 school districts. Its districts spent $14,125 per pupil in fiscal year 2024, against $17,452 nationally.

Montana, 2024–25

147,049
Pupils
0.3% of the nation's public school pupils.
842
Public schools
Operational public schools in NCES’s 2024–⁠25 directory.
13.7
Pupils per teacher
Over the 838 schools that report both counts; nationally 15.2.
0
Charter schools
No charter schools in 2024–⁠25.
$14,125
Spending per pupil
Current spending over fall membership, fiscal year 2024.

Montana over time

Montana's public school enrollment excluding pre-kindergarten fell by 5,842 from its peak in 2022–⁠23 to 2024–⁠25

Public school membership in Montana 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.

Source: NCES

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The figures

Montana's public school enrollment excluding pre-kindergarten fell by 5,842 from its peak in 2022–23 to 2024–25. Public school membership in Montana 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
2014–⁠15144,532143,3031,229
2015–⁠16145,319144,1611,158
2016–⁠17146,375145,3091,066
2017–⁠18149,474147,1532,321
2018–⁠19148,844146,7302,114
2019–⁠20149,917148,0091,908
2020–⁠21146,252144,6851,567
2021–⁠22150,195148,6241,571
2022–⁠23150,733149,813920
2023–⁠24149,291147,8401,451
2024–⁠25147,208143,9713,237

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Montana's school districts spent $14,125 per pupil in fiscal year 2024, against $8,054 in 2005, in each year's dollars

Current spending per pupil in Montana, 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 2024, 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, and this chart shows only the release NCES published last.

Source: NCES

About this chart

The figures

Montana's school districts spent $14,125 per pupil in fiscal year 2024, against $8,054 in 2005, in each year's dollars. Current spending per pupil in Montana, fiscal years 2005 to 2024: current spending over fall membership, summed over every district. In each year’s dollars, not adjusted for inflation.
Fiscal yearPer pupilPupilsRelease
FY2005$8,054146,552Provisional
FY2006$8,581145,259Provisional
FY2007$9,078144,258Provisional
FY2008$9,666142,695Provisional
FY2009$10,047141,782Provisional
FY2010$10,489141,807Provisional
FY2011$10,632141,693Provisional
FY2012$10,456142,349Provisional
FY2013$10,617142,908Provisional
FY2014$11,010144,129Provisional
FY2015$11,025144,488Provisional
FY2016$11,345145,287Provisional
FY2017$11,383146,332Provisional
FY2018$11,675146,668Provisional
FY2019$12,012147,709Final
FY2020$12,096148,598Final
FY2021$13,294145,005Final
FY2022$13,576149,043Final
FY2023$13,765150,098Provisional
FY2024$14,125148,897Provisional

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Where Montana’s districts got their money, fiscal year 2024

Revenue of all 483 districts in NCES’s finance file, by source. Nationally, 11.4% came from federal sources.

Local sources gave Montana's school districts 43.8% of their revenue in fiscal year 2024

Revenue of Montana's public school districts by source, fiscal year 2024, as a share of their total revenue.

Source: NCES

About this chart

The figures

Local sources gave Montana's school districts 43.8% of their revenue in fiscal year 2024. Revenue of Montana's public school districts by source, fiscal year 2024, as a share of their total revenue.
SourceRevenueShare of revenue
Federal$445.2 million17.6%
State$973.6 million38.6%
Local$1.1 billion43.8%

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The largest districts in Montana

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

2 more columns on a wider screen

The 10 largest public school districts in Montana, 2024–25
DistrictPupilsSchools
Billings Elementary11,16928
Great Falls Elementary6,89017
Billings High School5,4446
Missoula Elementary5,29314
Helena Elementary5,10016
Bozeman Elementary4,65710
Missoula High School3,9595
Kalispell Elementary3,0977
Flathead High School2,9764
Great Falls High School2,9602

City, suburb, town and rural schools in Montana

41.0% of function(a,{person:c=!1,apostrophe:d="'"}={}){let e;return c||(e=a.trim().split(/\s+/).at(-1)?.replace(/[^\p{L}]+$/u,"")??"",!/s$/.test(e)||b.has(e)||/(ss|us|is|as)$/i.test(e))?`${a}${d}s`:`${a}${d}`} public school pupils attended rural schools in 2024–⁠25

Pupils in function(a,{person:c=!1,apostrophe:d="'"}={}){let e;return c||(e=a.trim().split(/\s+/).at(-1)?.replace(/[^\p{L}]+$/u,"")??"",!/s$/.test(e)||b.has(e)||/(ss|us|is|as)$/i.test(e))?`${a}${d}s`:`${a}${d}`} 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.

Source: NCES

About this chart

The figures

41.0% of function(a,{person:c=!1,apostrophe:d="'"}={}){let e;return c||(e=a.trim().split(/\s+/).at(-1)?.replace(/[^\p{L}]+$/u,"")??"",!/s$/.test(e)||b.has(e)||/(ss|us|is|as)$/i.test(e))?`${a}${d}s`:`${a}${d}`} public school pupils attended rural schools in 2024–25. Pupils in function(a,{person:c=!1,apostrophe:d="'"}={}){let e;return c||(e=a.trim().split(/\s+/).at(-1)?.replace(/[^\p{L}]+$/u,"")??"",!/s$/.test(e)||b.has(e)||/(ss|us|is|as)$/i.test(e))?`${a}${d}s`:`${a}${d}`} 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
City10812.8%49,11733.4%
Suburb131.5%4,3573.0%
Town839.9%33,31022.7%
Rural63875.8%60,26541.0%

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Colleges in Montana that take federal student aid

26 colleges in Montana are in NCES’s IPEDS universe for 2025–26: 18 public, 4 private nonprofit and 4 private for-profit. They enrolled 60,889 students over twelve months and awarded 5,602 bachelor’s degrees.

Montana elsewhere on the Factbook

  • Reported crime Crime and justice

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

  • Cities by violent crime rate in Montana Crime 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 population Crime 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 age Crime and justice

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

  • Hate crime Crime 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 obligations Federal spending

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

  • Registered nonprofits Nonprofits

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

  • Payments to doctors Health

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

  • Farm program payments Farm 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 loans PPP 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.

  • Population, age, income and origin Demographics

    The Census Bureau's population estimates year by year, with births, deaths and migration, and age, income, poverty, housing and origin from the American Community Survey, each with its margin of error.

  • Banks and credit unions Banks and credit unions

    The FDIC-insured banks headquartered in the state and their offices, and the credit unions based there and their sites, each per resident and against every other state.

  • Housing Housing

    The homes under HUD’s rental assistance programs in the state, by program and county, and its tax-credit housing, each per resident and against every other state.

  • Mortgage lending Mortgage lending

    The mortgage applications, loans and denials lenders reported in the state under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, and its largest lenders and counties.

  • Cost of living Cost of living

    BEA’s price level for the state against the nation, for goods, rents, utilities and other services, and its metro areas beside it.

  • Treatment facilities Treatment facilities

    Substance use and mental health treatment listings in the state, as SAMHSA’s directories print them: not a license, a rating or a recommendation.

  • Health centers Health centers

    Community health center sites in the state, from HRSA’s Data Warehouse, by county and by the organization that runs them: no rating and no recommendation.

  • Pandemic relief Pandemic relief

    COVID-19 relief obligated to the state’s government, from PRAC’s state workbook, by awarding agency: not every award made in the state, and no PPP loan.

  • County health County health

    CDC’s model-based estimates of adult health, risk behaviors and prevention for every county in the state, each with its 95% interval.

  • Historic places Historic places

    Every place on the National Register of Historic Places in the state, by county and by the year it was listed, from the National Park Service’s listed-properties file.

  • Health care exclusions Health care program exclusions

    Every exclusion in effect in the state on OIG’s list of people and organizations barred from Medicare, Medicaid and every other federal health care program, by authority and year.

  • Registered aircraft Aircraft registry

    Aircraft on the FAA’s register whose registrant’s address is in the state, and the kind of registrant that holds them.

  • H-1B salaries H-1B salaries

    The offered wages on H-1B applications the Department of Labor certified with a first worksite in the state, by occupation, each median with the count behind it.

  • Disaster declarations Disasters

    Every federal disaster declaration FEMA made for the state, by type, incident and county, with each measure’s rank among the states and territories.

  • College athletics Sports

    Every college in the state that reported to the Equity in Athletics survey, ranked by its athletics revenue, with its expenses, athletes and athletic aid.

  • Federal civilian workforce Federal salaries

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

  • The Montana Factbook entry Across 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 hub has no page for this state: EOIR runs no immigration court here, and CBP publishes by sector and field office, which are its own areas of responsibility rather than a geography. Immigration and the border.

Sources

Compiled automatically from NCES Common Core of Data — public schools, newest full school year, 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, 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), 2024–25; “School District Finance Survey (F-33),” fiscal year 2024; Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).

Data retrieved