South Carolina Education Statistics 2026: Schools, Enrollment & Spending
South Carolina recorded 789,086 actively enrolled public school students in its 45-day 2025–26 count. The grade distribution is centered near 56,000 to 62,000 students in most grades, with a larger Grade 9 cohort.
School capacity and finance measures come from separate reporting systems. The latest nationally comparable NCES file covers 2023–24, while the ratified FY 2025–26 budget projects $19,075 in average funding per pupil, excluding local bond revenue.
South Carolina Education Statistics
Each card retains its own reporting year because enrollment, school staffing, finance, and outcome records are released on different schedules.
Enrollment by Grade in 2025–26
Active students recorded in South Carolina’s 45-day public school headcount.
Grade 9 accounts for 8.5% of the statewide count. Most other numbered grades fall within a narrower band of roughly 55,500 to 61,600 students.
Grade distribution
- Grade 9 exceeds Grade 10 by 5,766 students.
- The four high school grades represent 30.7% of the active headcount.
- Pre-K is reported separately and accounts for 3.4% of the total.
Full 2025–26 Grade Enrollment Table
The statewide total is the sum of Pre-K through Grade 12 in the 45-day district headcount file.
| Grade | Students | Share | Snapshot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-K | 26,904 | 3.4% | 45-day 2025–26 |
| Kindergarten | 52,969 | 6.7% | 45-day 2025–26 |
| Grade 1 | 55,974 | 7.1% | 45-day 2025–26 |
| Grade 2 | 56,656 | 7.2% | 45-day 2025–26 |
| Grade 3 | 58,268 | 7.4% | 45-day 2025–26 |
| Grade 4 | 58,731 | 7.4% | 45-day 2025–26 |
| Grade 5 | 58,777 | 7.4% | 45-day 2025–26 |
| Grade 6 | 59,171 | 7.5% | 45-day 2025–26 |
| Grade 7 | 59,392 | 7.5% | 45-day 2025–26 |
| Grade 8 | 60,311 | 7.6% | 45-day 2025–26 |
| Grade 9 | 67,375 | 8.5% | 45-day 2025–26 |
| Grade 10 | 61,609 | 7.8% | 45-day 2025–26 |
| Grade 11 | 57,434 | 7.3% | 45-day 2025–26 |
| Grade 12 | 55,515 | 7.0% | 45-day 2025–26 |
| Total | 789,086 | 100.0% | 45-day 2025–26 |
Enrollment bands
- Pre-K through Grade 5 contains 368,279 students, or 46.7% of the statewide total.
- Grades 6–8 contain 178,874 students, or 22.7%.
- The gap between Grade 9 and Grade 12 is 11,860 students.
Enrollment Movement Since 2021–22
The series uses the same 45-day active headcount basis for each school year.
Statewide 45-Day Enrollment Trend
Comparable fall snapshots from 2021–22 through 2025–26.
Enrollment rose for three consecutive fall snapshots before declining by 7,694 students in 2025–26.
| School year | Enrollment | Annual change | Annual rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021–22 | 781,231 | Baseline | — |
| 2022–23 | 789,231 | +8,000 | +1.0% |
| 2023–24 | 793,551 | +4,320 | +0.5% |
| 2024–25 | 796,780 | +3,229 | +0.4% |
| 2025–26 | 789,086 | −7,694 | −1.0% |
Recent enrollment direction
- The 2025–26 count remains 7,855 students above the 2021–22 level.
- The latest one-year decline exceeds the combined gains recorded in 2023–24 and 2024–25 by 145 students.
Schools, Districts, and Teaching Capacity
NCES provides a nationally aligned 2023–24 operating-system snapshot. The salary entry comes from the ratified South Carolina FY 2025–26 budget.
| Measure | Value | Unit | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating public schools | 1,270 | Schools | 2023–24 | NCES CCD |
| Operating districts | 96 | Districts | 2023–24 | NCES CCD |
| Student membership | 793,860 | Students | 2023–24 | NCES CCD |
| Teachers | 57,243 | FTE | 2023–24 | NCES CCD |
| Pupil-teacher ratio | 13.9 | Pupils per teacher FTE | 2023–24 | NCES CCD |
| Minimum beginning teacher salary | $48,500 | Bachelor’s, 0 years | FY 2025–26 | SC budget |
System scale and staffing
- The NCES counts equal about 625 students per operating school and about 13.2 schools per operating district.
- The 13.9 pupil-teacher ratio is an FTE ratio, not an average class-size measure.
FY 2025–26 Funding Mix
The ratified state budget reports projected average funding from state, federal, and local sources. Local bond revenue is excluded.
Projected Funding per Pupil by Source
Nominal dollars per pupil in the FY 2025–26 budget.
State and local sources provide nearly equal shares. Federal funding represents the smaller component of the projected total.
| Funding source | Per pupil | Share | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| State | $8,914 | 46.7% | Projected FY 2025–26 |
| Federal | $1,225 | 6.4% | Projected FY 2025–26 |
| Local | $8,936 | 46.9% | Projected FY 2025–26 |
| Total | $19,075 | 100.0% | Local bond revenue excluded |
Funding structure
- Local funding exceeds state funding by only $22 per pupil.
- State and local sources together account for 93.6% of the projected total.
- The budget uses a projected pupil count of 770,504 for State Aid to Classrooms; that funding count is not the 45-day active headcount.
Graduation and Readiness Measures
The 2025 South Carolina School Report Cards cover the 2024–25 school year.
| Indicator | Value | Report year | Population |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-time graduation rate | 86.7% | 2025 | Statewide high school cohort |
| College or career ready | 75.1% | 2025 | Statewide reported share |
| High schools rated Good or better on college-career readiness | 63.0% | 2024 | Rated high schools |
| High schools rated Good or better on college-career readiness | 75.0% | 2025 | Rated high schools |
Graduation and readiness gap
- The graduation rate is 11.6 percentage points above the college-or-career-ready share.
- The share of high schools rated Good or better on the readiness indicator rose by 12 percentage points from 2024 to 2025.
What South Carolina’s 2026 Numbers Show
The measures describe system scale, cohort distribution, funding composition, and reported outcomes without treating different reporting periods as one dataset.
Enrollment changed direction
The 45-day count increased from 2021–22 through 2024–25, then returned close to its 2022–23 level in 2025–26.
High school cohorts are uneven
Grade 9 is the largest grade group. The smaller Grade 11 and Grade 12 counts may reflect cohort size, student movement, grade progression, and reporting status; the headcount alone does not isolate those effects.
State and local funding are balanced
The projected state and local amounts differ by $22 per pupil. Federal dollars form a separate 6.4% share.
Source definitions affect totals
SCDE’s 45-day active count and NCES membership are close but not identical. Source timing, file revisions, and federal reporting rules can create small differences.
Data Sources and Measurement
South Carolina Department of Education, Active Student Headcounts. The grade table and trend use 45-day snapshots.
National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data, school year 2023–24, final files. Teacher counts are full-time equivalents.
South Carolina Legislature, ratified FY 2025–26 budget, Part IB, Proviso 1.3. Funding values are projected averages.
South Carolina Department of Education, 2025 School Report Card release for the 2024–25 school year.
Student shares are calculated from the 789,086 statewide 45-day total and rounded to one decimal place. Funding shares are calculated from the $19,075 projected total and may not sum perfectly before display rounding. Dollar values are nominal. School-year, fiscal-year, and federal survey records retain their original labels.
The $19,075 figure is projected average funding, not audited expenditure, and excludes local bond revenue. The 770,504 budget pupil projection, the 789,086 SCDE 45-day headcount, and the 793,860 NCES 2023–24 membership value use different definitions or periods. The pupil-teacher ratio is not a class-size estimate. Graduation and readiness percentages describe different indicators and should not be added together.