Public and Private School Distribution
In the United States, about 91% of students—more than 49 million—attend one of the nation’s 99,000+ public schools.1 Approximately 29,727 private schools educate 4.7 million (less than 9%) of the nation’s students. Most private schools (83.4%) are in or close to urban or suburban areas; only 16.6% are in distant or remote regions.2 A 2017 study found that only one third of students in rural areas have access to a private school within a 5-mile radius.3 Most private schools (66%) have a religious orientation.
Why look at public and private school distribution?
As of January 2025, 34 states have policies in place to provide vouchers to parents to pay for non-public school costs.4 School vouchers—sometimes referred to as tax-credit scholarships, universal school choice, or education savings accounts—allow funding systems to use public funds for private schools. The U.S. Congress is also considering legislation that would utilize the tax code to create a type of school voucher program for families that use non-public schools. This analysis of public and private school distribution provides information on where vouchers would likely be allocated.
This resource was supported by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and Raikes Foundation. Core operating support for the Learning Policy Institute is provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Heising-Simons Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Raikes Foundation, Sandler Foundation, Skyline Foundation, and MacKenzie Scott. The ideas voiced here are those of the authors and not those of our funders.
Suggested citation: Learning Policy Institute. (2025, March). Public and Private School Distribution [Data tool]. https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/2025-public-private-school-distribution
Public and Private School Distribution Data Tool is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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Endnotes
1. National Center for Education Statistics. (2024, February). Digest of Education Statistics: 2022. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. (accessed 02/28/2025).
2. Urban/Suburban includes schools defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as urban and suburban and schools designated as fringe towns and fringe rural. Distant and remote schools are those located in towns or rural areas that are defined as distant or remote by the National Center for Education Statistics. See National Center for Education Statistics. (n.d.). Locale classifications and criteria. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. (accessed 02/28/2025).
3. Chingos, M., & Blagg, K. (2017). Who could benefit from school choice? Mapping access to public and private schools. The Brookings Institution.
4. EdChoice. School Choice in America Dashboard [Interactive tool]. (accessed 02/28/2025).