South Carolina

Sources and methodology

• Census Annual Survey of School System Finances, FY 2019–2024. Current spending covers operating functions such as instruction and support. Total expenditures include items such as capital outlay, and are shown separately. The official Census per-pupil field uses its own spending scope, which can exclude spending for students outside the fall count.
• NCES Common Core of Data district membership uses the published Education Unit Total. The Census fall enrollment field is the denominator for this site’s separate district-wide ratio. Census can adjust its count to match the scope of reported finances, so the two counts can differ.
• School counts use the opening status in each NCES school-year release. Closed, temporarily closed, new, reopened and changed-agency records are listed separately. Schools with an open, new, added, changed-agency or reopened status count as operating. Reportable programs are excluded. A missing district-year stays unavailable. Federal status describes a reporting year, and the district can confirm exact dates and individual school decisions.
• Comparisons in 2024 dollars use the annual national CPI-U and require the same Census school-system type in both years. This controls for general inflation. The same district identifier can span changes in boundaries, served grades or organizational structure. The timelines establish what each source reported.

America.co analysis of public federal data, compiled 2026-11-13.

Census finance tables · NCES enrollment and directory files · 2025–26 preliminary directory · BLS inflation data