Rural public schools enrolled about 9.8 million students in fall 2019, representing 19% of public-school enrollment, while rural schools made up 28% of all public schools. The figures below show how rural education differs across school size, connectivity, early care, staffing, coursework, graduation, and adult attainment. Most measures are U.S. national statistics reported by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and the latest available year varies by indicator.
Contents
- How many students and schools are rural?
- School size, choice, and digital access
- Early childhood and student support
- Rural education staffing and leadership
- High school coursework and career pathways
- Graduation and educational attainment
How many students and schools are rural?
NCES counted about 27,500 public elementary and secondary schools in rural areas in fall 2019. Those schools represented 28% of all public elementary and secondary schools and served about 9.8 million students, or 19% of total public-school enrollment. For context, the United States had about 98,500 public elementary and secondary schools enrolling 50.4 million students at the same time. (NCES, Enrollment and School Choice in Rural Areas, fall 2019.)
Rural enrollment is not distributed evenly across NCES rural categories. Fringe-rural schools enrolled 12% of all public-school students, distant-rural schools enrolled 6%, and remote-rural schools enrolled 2% in fall 2019. These categories describe different degrees of rural location, so “rural,” “remote rural,” “distant rural,” and “fringe rural” should not be treated as interchangeable. (NCES, Enrollment and School Choice in Rural Areas, fall 2019.)
The same NCES source reports that, in fall 2021, about 27,500 rural public elementary and secondary schools served more than 9.8 million students. Because the source presents a different measurement period, the fall 2021 figures should be read as a later reported snapshot rather than as a replacement for every fall 2019 measure. (NCES, Enrollment and School Choice in Rural Areas, fall 2021.)
| Measure | Rural figure | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Public-school students | About 9.8 million | Fall 2019 |
| Share of public-school students | 19% | Fall 2019 |
| Rural public schools | About 27,500 | Fall 2019 |
| Share of public schools | 28% | Fall 2019 |
| All U.S. public-school students | 50.4 million | Fall 2019 |
| All U.S. public schools | About 98,500 | Fall 2019 |
School size, choice, and digital access
Rural public schools were relatively small on average. The average rural public elementary or secondary school enrolled 368 students in fall 2019. The average remote-rural school enrolled 165 students, while the average distant-rural school enrolled 285 students. These averages help explain why a national rural average can conceal substantial differences between communities and rural subcategories. (NCES, Enrollment and School Choice in Rural Areas, fall 2019.)
Families used several education arrangements. Public charter schools enrolled about 334,500 rural students in fall 2019, equal to 3% of rural public elementary and secondary students. Private schools enrolled about 570,400 rural students in the 2019–20 period, or 5% of all rural elementary and secondary students. In 2019, about 423,300 rural children ages 5–17 with a kindergarten-to-grade-12 equivalent were homeschooled, representing 5% of that population. (NCES, Enrollment and School Choice in Rural Areas, fall 2019, 2019–20, and 2019.)
School decisions also reflected local ties and possible alternatives. In 2019, parents of 28% of rural public-school students reported considering other schools. Parents of 16% reported that they had moved to their current neighborhood so their children could attend their current public school. These are parent-reported measures, not counts of school transfers or migration across all rural households. (NCES, Enrollment and School Choice in Rural Areas, 2019.)
Home internet access remained uneven. In 2019, 76% of students living in rural areas had fixed broadband internet access at home. The share was 69% among students in remote rural areas, an explicit difference between the broader rural category and one of its subcategories. (NCES, Rural Students’ Access to the Internet, 2019.)
Early childhood and student support
Rural education statistics begin before kindergarten. Among rural children under age 6 who were not yet in kindergarten, 57% received some regular nonparental care in 2019, while 43% had no regular nonparental care arrangement. About 30% were in a center-based care program, 10% received primary care in a nonrelative’s home, and 15% received primary care from relatives. (NCES, Early Childhood Care and Education Programs in Rural Areas, 2019.)
Those rural children spent about 29 hours per week in nonparental care in 2019. Among rural parents who reported difficulty finding child care, 31% cited a lack of open slots for new children as the main reason. The measure concerns children under 6 who were not yet in kindergarten and should not be generalized to all rural families or all child-care barriers. (NCES, Early Childhood Care and Education Programs in Rural Areas, 2019.)
Within rural public-school districts, English learners made up 4% of enrollment in fall 2019. Students with disabilities made up 15% of rural public-school district enrollment, and about 1.1 million students with disabilities served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act were enrolled in rural public-school districts—16% of the national total of such students. In remote-rural public-school districts, students with disabilities represented 16% of enrollment. (NCES, English Learners and Students with Disabilities in Rural Public Schools, fall 2019.)
Rural education staffing and leadership
Rural public elementary and secondary school systems employed about 1.1 million staff in fall 2019. School staff accounted for 69% of those staff, while district staff accounted for 5%. Student-support staff accounted for 5%, and other support-services staff accounted for 20%. Teachers and instructional aides together made up 60% of staff. (NCES, Staff in Rural Public Elementary and Secondary School Systems, fall 2019.)
The rural public-school-system pupil-to-staff ratio was 6.7 in fall 2019. This is a system-level ratio and should not be interpreted as an average class size or as a teacher-to-student ratio. It includes the staff categories reported by NCES, including school, district, student-support, and other support-services staff. (NCES, Staff in Rural Public Elementary and Secondary School Systems, fall 2019.)
Teacher credentials varied between bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In the 2020–21 school year, 46% of public-school teachers in rural areas held a master’s degree as their highest degree, while 44% held a bachelor’s degree as their highest degree. In the same school year, 50% of rural public-school principals were women. These school-year measures are later than the fall 2019 staffing counts. (NCES, Characteristics, Credentials, and Experiences of Teachers in Rural Schools, school year 2020–21; NCES, Characteristics, Attitudes, and Behaviors of Principals in Rural Schools, school year 2020–21.)
High school coursework and career pathways
Rural high school graduates’ coursework included both college-preparatory and career-oriented subjects. In 2019, 96% had earned at least one STEM credit, 88% had earned an advanced mathematics credit, and 86% had earned an advanced science or engineering credit. More specialized credits were less common: 32% had earned at least one physics credit, 39% had earned at least one advanced biology credit, and 35% had taken a dual-enrollment course. (NCES, College Preparatory Coursework in Rural High Schools, 2019.)
Career and technical education was widespread among the same rural high school graduate population. In 2019, 92% had taken at least one career or technical education course. Specific course participation included 25% who had taken agriculture, food, and natural resources and 34% who had taken an information-technology course. These percentages describe coursework completed by rural high school graduates, not the share of all rural students currently enrolled in each subject. (NCES, Career and Technical Education Programs in Rural High Schools, 2019.)
Graduation and educational attainment
The rural public-school four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate was 90% in the 2019–20 school year. The national public-school four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate was 87% in the same period. Because these are adjusted cohort rates, they measure the share of a ninth-grade cohort graduating within four years under the published method; they are not the same as the percentage of all adults with a diploma. (NCES, Public High School Graduation Rates in Rural Areas, school year 2019–20.)
Adult attainment shows a broader, older population. Among rural adults age 25 and over in 2019, 34% had a high school degree as their highest attainment, 31% had some college education or an associate’s degree as their highest attainment, 25% had a bachelor’s or higher degree, and 11% had less than a high school education. Among rural adults ages 25 to 34, 32% had a high school degree as their highest attainment and 25% had a bachelor’s or higher degree. (NCES, Educational Attainment in Rural Areas, 2019.)
One longitudinal measure highlights postsecondary plans. In a 2013 follow-up of fall 2009 ninth-graders, 23% of students from rural high schools reported neither taking nor planning to take postsecondary classes. The corresponding share was 18% among city students and 18% among suburban students. This is an older follow-up measure and is presented for its stated 2013 period, not as a current estimate of rural postsecondary participation. (NCES, Postsecondary Enrollment Status of Youth From Rural Areas, 2013 follow-up of fall 2009 ninth-graders.)