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

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Table 1.9a.

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


Locale and race/ethnicity Total 10 percent or less 11–25 percent 26–50 percent 51–75 percent More than 75 percent
Total1 43,126,448 6,449,924 8,862,597 12,557,762 8,769,074 6,487,091
White 24,987,584 5,168,192 6,896,451 8,286,731 3,724,458 911,752
Black 7,315,144 305,887 685,995 1,788,696 2,176,850 2,357,716
Hispanic 8,235,502 494,403 761,638 1,787,306 2,335,214 2,856,941
Asian/Pacific Islander 1,889,010 424,107 416,154 499,207 343,537 206,005
American Indian/Alaska Native 542,303 27,605 66,010 148,963 161,613 138,112
City1 12,809,572 1,095,406 1,691,884 3,162,898 3,136,954 3,722,430
White 4,637,765 677,307 1,116,813 1,578,646 875,556 389,443
Black 3,447,262 79,127 189,718 681,491 1,033,738 1,463,188
Hispanic 3,771,510 192,344 222,873 649,379 1,015,661 1,691,253
Asian/Pacific Islander 797,841 134,381 140,345 209,352 173,038 140,725
American Indian/Alaska Native 109,972 6,029 15,329 31,063 28,817 28,734
Suburban1 15,549,796 3,946,797 4,026,236 3,883,089 2,259,610 1,434,064
White 9,404,426 3,262,751 3,004,301 2,212,009 748,679 176,686
Black 2,230,834 176,705 363,596 704,198 568,604 417,731
Hispanic 2,897,626 224,624 394,428 712,177 791,008 775,389
Asian/Pacific Islander 851,559 251,364 218,474 204,901 124,582 52,238
American Indian/Alaska Native 89,413 12,559 23,975 29,510 16,030 7,339
Town1 5,627,799 336,839 1,082,265 2,202,499 1,417,805 588,391
White 3,962,573 289,969 970,464 1,752,415 813,830 135,895
Black 652,334 10,846 29,511 150,344 252,363 209,270
Hispanic 786,228 25,939 50,482 212,690 285,319 211,798
Asian/Pacific Islander 96,008 5,462 17,681 42,556 23,221 7,088
American Indian/Alaska Native 112,694 3,434 11,062 37,156 38,809 22,233
Rural1 9,139,281 1,070,882 2,062,212 3,309,276 1,954,705 742,206
White 6,982,820 938,165 1,804,873 2,743,661 1,286,393 209,728
Black 984,714 39,209 103,170 252,663 322,145 267,527
Hispanic 780,138 51,496 93,855 213,060 243,226 178,501
Asian/Pacific Islander 143,602 32,900 39,654 42,398 22,696 5,954
American Indian/Alaska Native 230,224 5,583 15,644 51,234 77,957 79,806
Fringe1 4,748,997 900,458 1,262,186 1,494,091 802,882 289,380
White 3,475,402 781,466 1,054,729 1,131,458 440,524 67,225
Black 577,770 34,998 86,142 172,342 183,788 100,500
Hispanic 504,549 45,486 73,840 135,806 142,024 107,393
Asian/Pacific Islander 116,134 31,475 34,682 31,938 15,006 3,033
American Indian/Alaska Native 63,745 3,892 9,008 19,380 20,594 10,871
Distant1 2,973,841 147,550 667,832 1,195,216 698,936 264,307
White 2,409,257 137,365 625,868 1,053,066 509,171 83,787
Black 290,903 3,768 16,042 66,943 95,432 108,718
Hispanic 183,116 4,213 16,388 52,397 65,025 45,093
Asian/Pacific Islander 18,769 1,213 4,058 6,701 4,674 2,123
American Indian/Alaska Native 67,301 736 4,374 14,085 23,771 24,335
Remote1 1,416,443 22,874 132,194 619,969 452,887 188,519
White 1,098,161 19,334 124,276 559,137 336,698 58,716
Black 116,041 443 986 13,378 42,925 58,309
Hispanic 92,473 1,797 3,627 24,857 36,177 26,015
Asian/Pacific Islander 8,699 212 914 3,759 3,016 798
American Indian/Alaska Native 99,178 955 2,262 17,769 33,592 44,600
1 Includes other racial/ethnic groups not separately shown.
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 public 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 public school students. For a comparison of poverty definitions, see appendix B. Race/ethnicity categories exclude persons of Hispanic origin unless otherwise specified. Rural areas are located outside any urbanized area or urban cluster. Urbanized areas are densely settled areas containing at least 50,000 people. Urban clusters are densely settled areas with a population of 2,500 to 49,999. Fringe rural areas are 5 miles or less from an urbanized area or 2.5 miles or less from an urban cluster. Distant rural areas are more than 5 miles but less than or equal to 25 miles from an urbanized area, or more than 2 miles.5 but less than or equal to 10 miles from an urban cluster. Remote rural areas are more than 25 miles from an urbanized area and more than 10 miles from an urban cluster. For more details on Census-defined areas, see http://www.census.gov/geo/www/ua/ua_2k.html. 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.