How many high schools are in the US: 23,578 public, about 10,840 private, and how to download the lists

This page is for anyone who needs the number of high schools in the US, and for companies that sell to them: athletics, career and technical education (CTE) equipment, college and career readiness, graduation products and security. It reconciles the official counts, breaks them down by type, size and state, covers public, elementary and private schools, and shows how to download the lists. For every K-12 school and district, see our list of schools.

How many high schools there are in the US

CCD counts cover the 50 states and DC and include schools that were open, new, added, reopened or changed agency in 2024-25.

Why the counts differ

• Grade span decides what a "high school" is. The CCD classes a school by its lowest and highest grades. A K-12 school in a small rural district teaches 12th grade but counts as "other", not "high", which is why 27,815 public schools teach 12th grade but only 23,578 are high schools.
• Private schools are mostly combined. Of the roughly 10,840 private schools teaching 12th grade, about 8,180 also teach elementary grades. Only about 2,670 are high schools alone.
• States report programs as schools. 3,707 public high schools are alternative schools, and 634 are exclusively or primarily virtual. They count as high schools but rarely buy like a comprehensive one.
• Association membership is a choice. The NFHS count covers schools that join their state association to compete in sports and activities. A school that fields no teams has little reason to join, so this count sits below the federal ones.

Public and private schools at every level

So the US has 99,088 public schools and about 30,550 private schools, about 129,600 in all. The CCD counts 8,049 public charter schools among the 99,088.

Public high schools by type and grade span

By grade span, 16,683 run grades 9 to 12, 3,214 start at grade 7 or 8, 2,816 start at grade 5 or 6, and 865 start at grade 10 or later. Career and technical schools cluster in a few states: Arizona reports 290 and Kentucky 133, while Georgia and Texas report none as separate schools.

Public high schools by size

Total school membership from the CCD for the 21,701 public high schools that reported students; 1,877 reported no students.

The median public high school has 418 students, and the median regular one 539. The 5,669 schools with 1,000 or more students enroll 65% of high school students, so a list of large high schools covers most of the market in a quarter of the buildings. Across all public schools, 15,435,108 students were in grades 9 to 12, including 3,779,169 seniors.

Private high schools

These are NCES's weighted estimates for the 2023-24 private schools whose highest grade is 12:

Private schools enrolled about 1.53 million students in grades 9 to 12, including about 361,000 seniors. Catholic schools teaching 12th grade are fewer but larger, with a median of 375 students against 130 at other religious schools and 86 at nonsectarian ones. As general guidance, a large Catholic high school often has a business manager and a development office, while a small K-12 school may have one administrator doing every job.

High schools by state

State private school estimates come from a sample, so treat them as approximate; small differences between states aren't meaningful.

How to download a list of high schools

1. Public high schools. Download the School Directory file for 2024-25 from the NCES CCD data files page. It's a CSV with every school's name, district, address, phone, website, grade span, level, type and charter status. Filter LEVEL to "High", or G_12_OFFERED to "Yes" to include K-12 schools. All 23,578 high schools have a phone number and 16,327 list a website.
2. Enrollment. Join the CCD Membership file on the school ID (NCESSCH) for students by grade, or use NCES's ELSI table generator to build the same list without the raw files.
3. One state or district. NCES's Search for Public Schools filters by state, district and grade span.
4. Private high schools. The PSS public-use file lists the 22,510 private schools that responded, with address, phone, religious orientation, grade span and enrollment; filter the highest grade to 12. NCES's Private School Search covers the same schools online.
5. Athletics contacts. Each state's high school association, the NFHS's members, keeps its own list of member schools for scheduling and championships.

How high schools buy

As general guidance, these are the usual owners by what you sell:

Perkins V, the federal CTE law signed in July 2018, provides nearly $1.4 billion a year to states. Every district or college that receives it must update a comprehensive local needs assessment at least every two years, judging whether its programs are big enough and match in-demand jobs. That review is when new programs and equipment get planned, so ask a district when its next one is due.

Worked example: shop equipment for Massachusetts career and technical high schools

Illustrative example. The company and its rates are invented; the counts come from the NCES CCD for 2024-25.

The seller: Benchmark Training Systems (benchmark-training.example) sells automotive, welding and advanced manufacturing trainers for high school shops. The territory: Massachusetts, where career and technical education is concentrated in standalone schools.

1. Count the market. The CCD lists 36 career and technical high schools in Massachusetts, enrolling 39,570 students, about 1,100 each. Each one is its own district, so each has its own superintendent and its own budget, rather than one decision for a whole county.
2. Time it. Every Perkins recipient updates its local needs assessment at least every two years, so roughly half of the 36, an illustrative 18 schools, review their programs in any given year.
3. Do the arithmetic. If Benchmark reaches the CTE or program director at all 18 schools in review and wins an illustrative one in four, that's 4 or 5 new customers a year. At an illustrative $60,000 per shop refit, that's $240,000 to $300,000 a year from one state.
4. Find the buyer. Write to the CTE director and the shop's lead teacher, who usually drafts the equipment list. Finding those people and what's changed (a new program, a building project, a new director) is the slow part; Bebop finds the contacts and researches each school in the list.

Subject: [Program] equipment before your next needs assessment

Hi [first name],

I saw [school] added [program, e.g. advanced manufacturing] in [year], and your local needs assessment is due again [term].

Schools your size tell us the hard part isn't choosing trainers, it's matching them to the credentials students can earn before graduation.

We supply automotive, welding and manufacturing trainers to high school shops across [region]. Would a 15-minute call to compare your equipment list with the credentials you offer be useful before the review?

[Your name]
[Phone number]

Next step: profile each target school or district with the account research template before you write.