$15,733 per student: Florida school districts’ spending in fiscal 2024–25, district by district

Spending per student in 67 Florida school districts, fiscal 2024–25: median $15,733, range $10,772 to $27,880. Every figure from FLDOE public records, with what the figure includes and leaves out.

Half of the 67 Florida school districts that run both elementary and high school grades recorded spending of more than $15,733 per student for fiscal 2024–25, and half recorded less. That middle figure, the median, comes from the Expenditures per Unweighted Full-Time Equivalent report published by the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE). It is the most recent year DistrictFacts publishes for the state.

The lowest figure among those districts is $10,772 per student, at Hendry County Public Schools (13,888 students enrolled, 2025–26). The highest is $27,880, at Glades County Public Schools (1,850 students enrolled, 2025–26), about 2.6 times the lowest. The middle half of districts fall between $14,841 and $17,842.

Spending per student, fiscal 2024–25: the 5 lowest and the 5 highest of 67 Florida districts

Hendry County Public Schools
$10,772
Holmes County Public Schools
$12,667
Seminole County Public Schools
$12,771
Baker County Public Schools
$13,103
Polk County Public Schools
$13,497
Walton County Public Schools
$24,103
Sarasota County Public Schools
$24,543
Monroe County Public Schools
$25,069
Putnam County Public Schools
$26,105
Glades County Public Schools
$27,880

10 of 67 districts shown: the 5 lowest and the 5 highest. Bars start at zero and the line marks the median of all 67, $15,733. Each bar links to the district’s page.

Florida Department of Education (FLDOE), Expenditures per Unweighted Full-Time Equivalent report, fiscal 2024–25

The largest district

Miami-Dade County Public Schools is the largest Florida system reporting this figure, with 321,509 students enrolled (2025–26). Its figure is $17,382 per student for fiscal 2024–25, 10% above the $15,733 median of the 67 districts compared here. The DistrictFacts homepage shows the same comparison.

What “spending per student” means in Florida

In Florida the figure is FLDOE’s expenditure per unweighted full-time-equivalent student: a district’s general, special revenue (grants for set purposes), debt service (repayment of borrowed money) and capital projects (building and equipment) fund expenditures divided by its unweighted count of full-time-equivalent students, as FLDOE printed it. In a full-time-equivalent count a student enrolled for the whole school year counts as one and a part-time student as a fraction; unweighted means each student counts the same, before the extra weight the state’s funding formula gives some programs. The figure comes from the districts’ unaudited annual financial reports. Only those four fund groups are counted. Debt service and capital projects are among them, so this is not an operating-only figure.

Each state defines this figure differently: what spending is counted, and which count of students it is divided by. The Florida figure should not be set beside another state’s, and DistrictFacts does not rank states on it.

Which districts are counted

DistrictFacts publishes pages for 77 Florida districts and other local education agencies. 67 of them report this figure for fiscal 2024–25. The median and the range above cover 67: regular school districts whose schools span both elementary and high school grades. None of the reporting districts is left out.

The remaining 10 have no published figure for the year. A missing or withheld figure is not counted as zero; it is left out of the median.

What this does not tell you

A per-pupil figure does not show whether money was spent well, and it is not a measure of school quality. Districts differ in the students they serve, the services they must provide and their size. In a district with few students, a small change in spending or in the pupil count moves the figure a long way. This is one year of data and it says nothing about the trend. A useful question to ask a district is what is included in its figure and how it has changed over time; each district page linked here shows the detail and the source file.

This report was generated from public records by the DistrictFacts Data Desk. Every figure in it is read from the Expenditures per Unweighted Full-Time Equivalent report of the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE), as published on the district pages; none was typed by hand. The method is described on the DistrictFacts methodology page, and a correction can be requested from this story.

Sources

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