Overview
In the fall of 2009, about 85.3 million people in the United States were either enrolled or employed in public and private schools and colleges (Digest of Education Statistics, 2009, table 1). Included in this total were 75.2 million students enrolled in American schools and colleges.1 About 4.7 million people were employed as elementary and secondary school teachers or as college faculty and teaching assistants. Other professional, administrative, and support staff of educational institutions totaled 5.4 million. In a nation with a population of about 307 million in 2009, more than 1 out of every 4 people participated in formal education (Digest of Education Statistics, 2009, table 15).
For more information on education statistics, please go to: http://nces.ed.gov. For further detail on the tools available through the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) website, go to page 65 of this publication.
1 Tables in this report on elementary and secondary schools do not include data on homeschooled children. In 2007, there were 1.5 million homeschooled children (1.5 Million Homeschooled Students in the United States in 2007, NCES 2009-030).