1
St. Francis Preparatory School
Fresh Meadows·Queens County·Grades 9-12·~2,500 students
CatholicCo-edAffordable
Tuition$12.1K/yr
TypeCatholic
Students~2,500
Best Catholic Private Schools under $20K
Independent rankings of Catholic Private schools, built from director interviews and verified data — never from school payments.
69 schools indexed0 director-verifiedUpdated this week
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Our directory includes 69 private schools across Florida (Tampa Bay) and New York (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens). Annual tuition ranges from $5.4K/yr to $18.5K/yr, with a median of $10.5K/yr across schools that publish a number. 32 of these schools accept Florida Step Up / FES scholarships — roughly 46% of the list — so families using state-funded scholarships have real choice here.
Private schools on this page set their own admissions criteria. Most ask for a school visit, prior records, and a family interview; competitive K and 6th-grade entry points often fill 6-9 months before the start of school. 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 69 schools
- 2Archbishop Molloy High School
Briarwood·Queens County·Grades 9-12·~1,560 students
CatholicCo-edAffordableTuition$12.6K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~1,560 - 3Xaverian High School
Brooklyn·Kings County·Grades 9-12·~1,100 students
CatholicCo-edAffordableTuition$14.3K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~1,100 - 4St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School
Staten Island·Richmond County·Grades 9-12·~1,100 students
CatholicCo-edAffordableTuition$11.5K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~1,100 - 5Monsignor Farrell High School
Staten Island·Richmond County·Grades 9-12·~900 students
CatholicAffordableTuition$12.5K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~900 - 6Tampa Catholic High School
Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades 9-12·~781 students
Accepts scholarshipsCatholicCo-edAffordableTuition$16.9K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~781 - 7Holy Cross High School
Flushing·Queens County·Grades 9-12·~750 students
CatholicAffordableTuition$12.5K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~750 - 8Christ the King Regional High School
Middle Village·Queens County·Grades 9-12·~750 students
CatholicCo-edAffordableTuition$11.5K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~750 - 9St. John's Preparatory School
Astoria·Queens County·Grades 9-12·~684 students
CatholicCo-edAffordableTuition$10.7K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~684 - 10St. Joseph Hill Academy
Staten Island·Richmond County·Grades PK-12·~650 students
CatholicAffordableTuition$12K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~650
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 schools?
Across the 69 schools on this list, annual tuition ranges from $5.4K/yr to $18.5K/yr, with a median of $10.5K/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 to private schools?
Selective private schools review transcripts, teacher recommendations, an admissions test (ISEE or SSAT for grades 5-12), and an in-person visit. Acceptance rates vary widely — some schools accept nearly every qualified applicant, while top-tier programs admit fewer than 25%. Apply 9-12 months ahead of the start date.
Do these schools accept Step Up / FES scholarships?
32 of the 69 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. Francis Preparatory School is the largest at 2500. 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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