1
Forest Hills High School
Forest Hills·Queens County·Grades 9-12·~3,700 students
NCES
Co-ed
TuitionFree
TypePublic
Students~3,700
Best Schools tuition-free
Independent rankings of schools, built from director interviews and verified data — never from school payments.
556 schools indexedUpdated this week
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School type
- Charter101A free public school run independently of the school district.
- Private8
Religion
- Independent (non-religious)5A private school with no religious affiliation.
- Catholic1A private school run by the Catholic Church.
- Baptist1
- Non-denominational Christian1
- A private school rooted in the Jewish faith.
Grade level
Specialty
Affordability
- Tuition-Free1208
- ≈$0 with scholarship370Accepts Florida scholarships that help cover tuition.
- Under $20K list284
Verified
Director-verifiedRolling out
556 schools fit the "Tuition-Free" criteria across Florida and New York in our directory. 9 of these schools accept Florida Step Up / FES scholarships — roughly 2% of the list — so families using state-funded scholarships have real choice here.
Admissions processes vary by school. AdmitCompass surfaces the deadlines, test requirements, and tuition for each campus on its detail page, so families can build a balanced reach / target / safety list. 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: Under $20K list, ≈$0 with scholarship.
Showing 10 of 556 schools
How we rank
We rank by how well each school fits your family — academics, cost, distance, and values. Never by size, popularity, or payment (schools can’t pay for rank). The coarse admission-likelihood band is always free.
- 2Stuyvesant High School
New York·New York County·Grades 9-12·~3,300 students
NCES
Co-edTuitionFreeTypePublicStudents~3,300 - 3William Cullen Bryant High School
Astoria·Queens County·Grades 9-12·~2,700 students
NCES
Co-edTuitionFreeTypePublicStudents~2,700 - 4Strawberry Crest High School IB Programme
Dover·Hillsborough County·Grades 9-12·~2,531 students
NCES
TuitionFreeTypeMagnetStudents~2,531 - 5Osceola Fundamental High
St. Petersburg·Pinellas County·Grades 9-12·~1,706 students
DOE 2026 · NCES
Co-edTuitionFreeTypeMagnetStudents~1,706 - 6Dorothy C York Pk-8 Magnet School
Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades PK-8·~1,381 students
DOE 2026 · NCES
Co-edTuitionFreeTypeMagnetStudents~1,381 - 7Winthrop Charter School
Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades K-8·~1,344 students
DOE 2026 · NCES
SecularCo-edLikely · general · by school type · freeOpen-enrollment charter — most applicants are admitted when seats remain; oversubscribed grades use a lottery. General signal, not personalized.
TuitionFreeTypeSecularStudents~1,344 - 8Madeira Beach Fundamental K-8
St. Petersburg·Pinellas County·Grades K-8·~1,334 students
DOE 2026 · NCES
Co-edTuitionFreeTypeMagnetStudents~1,334 - 9Pinecrest Academy Wesley Chapel
Wesley Chapel·Pasco County·Grades K-8·~1,259 students
DOE 2026 · NCES
Co-edLikely · general · by school type · freeOpen-enrollment charter — most applicants are admitted when seats remain; oversubscribed grades use a lottery. General signal, not personalized.
TuitionFreeTypeCharterStudents~1,259 - 10Dayspring Academy
New Port Richey·Pasco County·Grades K-12·~1,259 students
DOE 2026 · NCES
SecularCo-edLikely · general · by school type · freeOpen-enrollment charter — most applicants are admitted when seats remain; oversubscribed grades use a lottery. General signal, not personalized.
TuitionFreeTypeSecularStudents~1,259
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
Are these schools tuition-free?
Yes. Every school on this page is publicly funded — either a charter or a tuition-free public-school-of-choice option. Families pay no tuition; standard public-school district enrollment rules and lottery procedures apply.
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?
9 of the 556 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?
Sfa Micro is the smallest with 5 students; Forest Hills High School is the largest at 3700. 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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