State College Area HS
State College · PA · State College Area SD · Public · K-12 combined
Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
South Western SHS → Cedar Cliff HS → Spring Grove Area HS → Shippensburg Area SHS → Red Land SHS → Pottsville Area HS → DuBois Area SHS → Selinsgrove Area HS →📋 At a glance
- 📚 24 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Gifted & talented program
- 🔢 8 calculus classes · 19 physics · 20 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 86th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Top 4.0% by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 96% (82th percentile nationally)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How State College Area HS compares for families
Standout academic depth by national standards.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 14% nationally with 24 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyPA students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+4 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: South Western SHS, Cedar Cliff HS, Spring Grove Area HS and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
86th percentile nationally
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-21Top 4.0% by test-taker volume
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.
🎓 4-year graduation rate · federal EDFacts
What % of students graduate on time?
82th percentile nationally
Source: federal EDFacts ACGR (Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate), 2019 vintage via Urban Institute. EDFacts publishes a range (low-high) to preserve privacy on small cohorts; we display the midpoint.
👩🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC
Teacher experience & reliability
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
Lower-need school
Not Title I eligible (FRPL < 25%)
<25% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. Well below the Title I threshold; expect a higher-income student body on average.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.
🏛️ Your state's public flagship
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus
The in-state tuition gap is the flagship's biggest draw — most in-state families pay far less than the out-of-state sticker. Average net price after aid runs about $32,875/yr. Admission odds depend on your student's GPA and test scores, not which high school they attend.
Source: IPEDS admissions, tuition & enrollment + College Scorecard net price. Flagship = the state's primary public research university.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: A low chronic-absence rate is the cleanest school-level signal of strong family connection, classroom culture, and student engagement — all upstream drivers of enrollment stability. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.
Counselor capacity
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020-2021. Counselor ratio = the school's most recent total enrollment ÷ counselor FTE. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a 250:1 maximum; the US national median across schools with on-staff counselors is roughly 430:1.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of -0.7%/year, projecting from 2024's 2,402 students:
≈ 81 fewer students by 2029 — a real revenue/relevance risk worth getting ahead of.
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue at risk
At $25,938 per student in district revenue, the 81 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $2,100,978/year in funding at risk.
District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.
Most similar nearby high schools
The schools most like this one — same type, blended on distance and size — and where their enrollment is heading. These are the schools families here weigh against each other.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| South Western SHS Hanover |
Public | 83.4 | 1,380 | +8.5% |
| Cedar Cliff HS Camp Hill |
Public | 63.2 | 1,333 | -1.1% |
| Spring Grove Area HS Spring Grove |
Public | 80.5 | 1,163 | -0.1% |
| Shippensburg Area SHS Shippensburg |
Public | 53.7 | 1,097 | +3.0% |
| Red Land SHS Lewisberry |
Public | 67.5 | 1,061 | -2.7% |
| Pottsville Area HS Pottsville |
Public | 86.3 | 976 | +9.8% |
| DuBois Area SHS DuBois |
Public | 52.3 | 893 | -4.4% |
| Selinsgrove Area HS Selinsgrove |
Public | 51.7 | 744 | -9.8% |