Status of Education in Rural America
NCES 2007-040
June 2007

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Table A-1.8.

Number and percentage distribution of public elementary and secondary students, by percentage of students in school eligible for free or reduced-price lunch and detailed locale: 2003–04


Detailed locale Number and percent eligible for free or reduced-price lunch 10 percent or less 11–25 percent 26–50 percent 51–75 percent More than 75 percent
    Number
Total 43,126,448 6,449,924 8,862,597 12,557,762 8,769,074 6,487,091
City, large 6,088,009 357,606 567,326 1,137,561 1,561,586 2,463,930
City, midsize 2,945,060 308,308 398,132 784,876 726,707 727,037
City, small 3,776,503 429,492 726,426 1,240,461 848,661 531,463
Suburban, large 13,040,346 3,537,750 3,335,298 3,022,649 1,858,258 1,286,391
Suburban, midsize 1,560,705 294,402 406,154 510,381 253,228 96,540
Suburban, small 948,745 114,645 284,784 350,059 148,124 51,133
Town, fringe 1,722,070 230,105 479,768 603,066 285,121 124,010
Town, distant 2,188,465 66,665 367,432 884,215 619,999 250,154
Town, remote 1,717,264 40,069 235,065 715,218 512,685 214,227
Rural, fringe 4,748,997 900,458 1,262,186 1,494,091 802,882 289,380
Rural, distant 2,973,841 147,550 667,832 1,195,216 698,936 264,307
Rural, remote 1,416,443 22,874 132,194 619,969 452,887 188,519
    Percentage distribution
Total 40.7 15.0 20.6 29.1 20.3 15.0
City, large 61.2 5.9 9.3 18.7 25.7 40.5
City, midsize 49.5 10.5 13.5 26.7 24.7 24.7
City, small 42.2 11.4 19.2 32.9 22.5 14.1
Suburban, large 31.2 27.1 25.6 23.2 14.3 9.9
Suburban, midsize 32.4 18.9 26.0 32.7 16.2 6.2
Suburban, small 33.2 12.1 30.0 36.9 15.6 5.4
Town, fringe 34.8 13.4 27.9 35.0 16.6 7.2
Town, distant 45.6 3.1 16.8 40.4 28.3 11.4
Town, remote 47.6 2.3 13.7 41.7 29.9 12.5
Rural, fringe 32.5 19.0 26.6 31.5 16.9 6.1
Rural, distant 41.1 5.0 22.5 40.2 23.5 8.9
Rural, remote 49.6 1.6 9.3 43.8 32.0 13.3
NOTE: The National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program. To be eligible, a student must be from a household with an income at or below 130 percent of the poverty threshold for free lunch or between 130 percent and 185 percent of the poverty threshold for reduced-price lunch. Approximately 13,704 schools did not report information on the number of students eligible for a free or reduced-price school lunch. Therefore, this information is missing for 5,227,075 students. For a comparison of poverty definitions, see appendix B. Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), "Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey," 2003–04.