$23,849 per pupil: New Hampshire school districts’ operating costs in fiscal 2024–25, district by district

Operating costs per pupil in 65 New Hampshire school districts, fiscal 2024–25: median $23,849, range $17,811 to $40,610. Every figure from NHED public records, with what the figure includes and leaves out.

Half of the 65 New Hampshire school districts that run both elementary and high school grades recorded operating costs of more than $23,849 per pupil for fiscal 2024–25, and half recorded less. That middle figure, the median, comes from the Cost Per Pupil by District report published by the New Hampshire Department of Education (NHED). It is the most recent year DistrictFacts publishes for the state.

The lowest figure among those districts is $17,811 per pupil, at Goffstown School District (2,764 students enrolled, 2025–26). The highest is $40,610, at Pittsburg School District (75 students enrolled, 2025–26), about 2.3 times the lowest. The middle half of districts fall between $21,197 and $26,293.

Cost per pupil, fiscal 2024–25: the 5 lowest and the 5 highest of 65 New Hampshire districts

Goffstown School District
$17,811
Manchester School District
$18,021
Nashua School District
$18,376
Bow School District
$18,864
Rochester School District
$19,177
Sunapee School District
$31,465
Inter-Lakes Cooperative School District
$33,272
Moultonborough School District
$34,375
Lincoln-Woodstock Cooperative School District
$36,078
Pittsburg School District
$40,610

10 of 65 districts shown: the 5 lowest and the 5 highest. Bars start at zero and the line marks the median of all 65, $23,849. Each bar links to the district’s page.

New Hampshire Department of Education (NHED), Cost Per Pupil by District report, fiscal 2024–25

The largest district

Manchester School District is the largest New Hampshire system reporting this figure, with 11,712 students enrolled (2025–26). Its figure is $18,021 per pupil for fiscal 2024–25, 24% below the $23,849 median of the 65 districts compared here. The DistrictFacts homepage compares the same figure with a wider group: all 160 New Hampshire systems reporting it for the year, including the kinds of district left out here. That median is $24,574, and Manchester School District is 27% below it.

What “cost per pupil” means in New Hampshire

In New Hampshire the figure is NHED’s cost per pupil: current operating spending for kindergarten through grade 12 from all sources, divided by average daily membership in attendance: the average number of pupils enrolled in the district’s own schools on each school day. Tuition the district pays for pupils it sends to other schools, and transportation, are subtracted before the division. NHED says the totals are comparable only between districts with the same grade range, which is why this article compares only districts that run both elementary and high school grades.

Each state defines this figure differently: what spending is counted, and which count of students it is divided by. The New Hampshire 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 209 New Hampshire districts and other local education agencies. 160 of them report this figure for fiscal 2024–25. The median and the range above cover 65: regular school districts whose schools span both elementary and high school grades. The other 95 are left out so that different kinds of district are not mixed in one median:

Of the remaining 49, 1 has a figure only for an earlier year and 48 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 Cost Per Pupil by District report of the New Hampshire Department of Education (NHED), 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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