According to the National Catholic Education Association, 2,403 schools, or 32% of the 7,589 U. S. Catholic elementary and high schools, had student waiting lists for the 2005-2006 school year.

Catholic school enrollment accounts for 48.6% of all students enrolled in U. S. private schools with total enrollment of more than 2.3 million students.

According to the U. S. Department of Education, Catholic schools have the lowest tuition of all private schools. On average, student tuition in Catholic elementary schools is $2,607 and the median tuition for a freshman in a Catholic high school is $5,870. According to the NCEA, 87% of the elementary schools and 97% of the high schools provide some form of tuition assistance to families that demonstrate the need for financial assistance.

Most Catholic elementary schools are coeducational. However, at the high school level, 33.1% of Catholic schools are single gender schools.

NCEA reports that 99% of Catholic secondary school students graduate and 97% enroll in college after graduation.

The majority of Catholic schools enroll students of all religions. Non-Catholic student enrollment has risen from 2.7% in 1970 to 11.2% a decade later to the current level of 13.5%. In most instances it is expected that non-Catholic students participate in the religious studies and religious activities of the school.

The Mideast and Great Lakes regions of the U. S. enroll about half of the Catholic school student population with 50.2% of all enrolled students. The following table provides the distribution of Catholic school enrollment by geographic region.