1
St. Joseph Hill Academy
Staten Island·Richmond County·Grades PK-12·~650 students
CatholicAffordable
Tuition$12K/yr
TypeCatholic
Students~650
Best Catholic Pre-K Schools under $20K
Independent rankings of Catholic Pre-K schools, built from director interviews and verified data — never from school payments.
40 schools indexed0 director-verifiedUpdated this week
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We track 40 catholic pre-k-level schools across our active markets in Florida and New York. Annual tuition ranges from $5.4K/yr to $18.5K/yr, with a median of $9.1K/yr across schools that publish a number. 29 of these schools accept Florida Step Up / FES scholarships — roughly 73% of the list — so families using state-funded scholarships have real choice here.
Catholic schools accept students of all faiths but typically prioritize parish families. Tuition is well below independent-school rates, and most participate in Florida Step Up scholarships. Every school is re-verified through direct outreach to admissions teams; data is refreshed on a 180-day cadence and timestamped on each profile.
See also: Scholarship-friendly, Tuition-Free.
Showing 10 of 40 schools
- 2St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic School
Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades PK-8·~601 students
Accepts scholarshipsCatholicCo-edAffordableTuition$11.5K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~601 - 3Christ the King Catholic School
Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades PK-8·~522 students
Accepts scholarshipsCatholicCo-edAffordableTuition$11K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~522 - 4Espiritu Santo Catholic School
Safety Harbor·Pinellas County·Grades PK-08·~466 students
Accepts scholarshipsCatholicCo-edAffordableTuition$10.7K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~466 - 5Notre Dame Academy
Staten Island·Richmond County·Grades PK-12·~400 students
CatholicAffordableTuition$12.5K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~400 - 6Saint Joseph Parish School
Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades PK-08·~278 students
Accepts scholarshipsCatholicCo-edAffordableTuition$10.3K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~278 - 7Queen of All Saints Academy
Brooksville·Hernando County·Grades K-12·~217 students
Accepts scholarshipsCatholicCo-edAffordableTuition$18.5K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~217 - 8Queen of All Saints Academy
Brooksville·Hernando County·Grades K-12·~203 students
Accepts scholarshipsCatholicCo-edAffordableTuition$18.5K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~203 - 9St. Raphael Catholic School
St. Petersburg·Pinellas County·Grades PK-08·~201 students
Accepts scholarshipsCatholicCo-edAffordableTuition$10.3K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~201 - 10Holy Family
Saint Petersburg·Pinellas County·Grades KG-08·~199 students
Accepts scholarshipsCatholicCo-edAffordableTuition$10.1K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~199
How we rank these schools
Built relationships, not scrapers. AdmitCompass ranks schools using a composite score that blends four signals: enrollment size (a proxy for stability and program breadth), tuition reasonableness within the local market, freshness of our most recent verification, and a small bonus for schools with full admissions detail published on their profile.
Public data comes from the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE), the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and each school's own admissions pages. The information that actually matters to most families — acceptance rates, deadlines, what a director cares about — comes from direct interviews with school directors and admissions coaches across our active markets.
We do not publish scoring weights or per-axis thresholds. That keeps the moat intact: the rankings reflect actual conversations with people inside schools, not a formula anyone with a crawler could clone. Every profile is re-verified on a 180-day cadence, and the "last updated" date is timestamped on every school page.
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Frequently asked questions
What's the average tuition for pre-k schools?
Across the 40 schools on this list, annual tuition ranges from $5.4K/yr to $18.5K/yr, with a median of $9.1K/yr. Many schools offer financial aid, sibling discounts, or accept Florida Step Up / FES scholarships — check each school's detail page for current aid policy.
How competitive is admission?
Admissions selectivity ranges from open-enrollment (most charters and parish schools) to highly selective (top independent K-12 programs). Each school's profile page lists deadlines, test requirements, and any published acceptance rate.
Do these schools accept Step Up / FES scholarships?
29 of the 40 schools on this page accept Florida's Step Up For Students / FES-EO / FES-UA scholarships. That covers most or all of tuition for income-eligible families. Each school's detail page lists the specific scholarship programs accepted.
What's the smallest and largest school on this list?
St. Rita Academy Of Hope is the smallest with 16 students; St. Joseph Hill Academy is the largest at 650. Smaller schools tend to offer more direct teacher contact and tighter community; larger schools usually have more elective and extracurricular breadth.
Is this list updated?
Yes. We re-verify school data on a 180-day cadence through direct contact with admissions teams, plus cross-checks against FLDOE, NCES, and published school sources. Each school profile shows the date of its most recent verification.
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