At $24,068 per pupil, Princeton Joint Unified ranks #198 of 1880 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
133
Total Enrollment
3
Schools
$24,068
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary, Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Princeton Joint Unified operates 3 public schools serving 133 students, placing it among the smallest districts in California. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 elementary, 1 combined, 1 high schools, a small enough portfolio that most families will interact with nearly every campus in the district at some point. These enrollment and school figures come from the NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) 2024-25 release, and the district is based in Colusa County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $24,068 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 1880 California districts by per-pupil spending. See how California compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 59.5% local, 29.5% state, and 11.0% federal, a local-revenue-heavy mix that leaves the district more exposed to property-tax swings and local ballot measures than state-funded peers.
a 97.8:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 26.8% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 56.3% Hispanic or Latino, 32.5% White, 0.6% Asian across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Princeton Elementary, enrolling 83 students (65% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Princeton Landing High (Cont), at 2 students, a 42x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Enrollment across the district's NCES-reporting campuses fell 12% between 2022-23 and 2023-24 (133 to 117 students), and the student-teacher ratio tightened by 0.7 students per teacher as staffing held steadier than enrollment, per the NCES Common Core of Data annual universe files.
Of the district's $3,724,000 in reported FY2023 expenditures, 39.1% went to instruction, 43.2% to support services, and 7.5% to capital outlay, support-services-heavy relative to typical districts, reflecting spending on transportation, administration, or student services. Figures come from the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey's function-level breakdown, not the aggregate per-pupil figure above.
Princeton Elementary accounts for 62.4% of all Princeton Joint Unified student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Princeton Joint Unified a distant remainder — means Princeton Joint Unified-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the largest entity. Grade band: elementary. The share measures enrollment concentration only; it does not establish how the district allocates programs, capital, or staff. Because it contains a majority of the affected population, enrollment-weighted aggregates will sit closer to this entity's reported fields than to those of smaller peers; an unweighted entity count answers a different question.
Princeton Joint Unified school enrollment varies 42× across entities
Princeton Joint Unified school enrollment ranges from 2 students (lowest) to 83 students (highest), a spread of 81 students. That ratio is among the widest observed and reflects extreme enrollment heterogeneity, the district operates both small specialty programs and large comprehensive campuses inside a single budgeting unit. Per-school staffing ratios, programme availability, and capital-renovation cycles often diverge inside the same district based on enrollment shape.
The reported share sits between 62.5% and 75%, above a simple majority but below the highest descriptive band used here. Title I operates under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015), but its statutory allocation uses additional LEA-level counts and rules not represented by this average. This percentage is an economic-need context measure; it does not establish a Title I award, show dollars received, or describe how funds are distributed among campuses.
Princeton Joint Unified student-counselor ratio is 98:1 — well below typical (typically associated with unusually small scale or exceptionally high per-unit investment)
student-counselor ratio is the simplest comparative metric but it does not capture the full picture: the ratio counts FTE counselors against total enrollment, districts that contract intervention or social-emotional staff outside the counselor classification may be under-counted Values this far below typical often correlate with unusually small scale or population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se — worth checking whether the underlying denominator is itself an outlier.
Princeton Joint Unified chronic absenteeism rate is 26.8% — near the typical range (US average ~28) — aligned with the national post-pandemic baseline of roughly 28% chronic absenteeism
chronic absenteeism rate is the simplest comparative metric but it does not capture the full picture: a student is chronically absent if they miss ≥10% of enrolled days for any reason, illness, family obligations, or disengagement Variation between sub-units within Princeton Joint Unified is typically wider than the Princeton Joint Unified-aggregate figure suggests.