Tallahassee's College Student Population

About one Tallahassee resident in four is enrolled in college, according to the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates.

The Census Bureau's school enrollment table for the city (ACS 2020-2024 table B14001) counts 40,620 residents in college undergraduate years and 10,070 in graduate or professional school, together 50,690 college students among 196,605 residents age 3 and over. The city demographic profile puts Tallahassee's total population at 201,875 in the same survey, so roughly 25 percent of the city is enrolled in college.

Leon County adds only a few thousand more. The county enrollment table shows 45,045 undergraduates and 11,433 graduate or professional students, so about nine of every ten Leon County undergraduates live inside the city limits. Students who live in Wakulla or Gadsden County and drive in for class are counted in the county where they live.

The three Tallahassee institutions report more students than the census finds living in the city.

Florida State University reports 46,184 students from every Florida county and 130 countries, on a main campus in Tallahassee of 487.6 acres, and dates its founding to 1851 on the oldest continuous site of higher education in Florida. Its student body page says 46,184 students were enrolled in fall 2025, 71.6% of them undergraduates and 23.8% graduate students, that the average age for undergraduate students is 20.5 and that 80% of all students were Floridians. The university's Office of Institutional Research publishes enrollment by college, residency and student level through the most recent fall semester.

Florida A&M University, founded October 3, 1887, describes itself as a public, historically Black university and an 1890 land grant institution, and its quick facts say FAMU enrolls nearly 10,000 students from across the United States and more than 70 countries. Tallahassee State College says it enrolls more than 16,000 credit and noncredit students each year and serves Leon, Gadsden and Wakulla counties from seven locations, including the Gadsden Center, the Wakulla Center and the Florida Public Safety Institute.

Added together, the three institutions report well over 70,000 students, far more than the 50,690 college students the census finds living in the city. The gap is expected: the TSC figure includes noncredit students and counts a full year rather than one semester, and campus counts include students who live outside the city, while the census counts only people whose usual residence is in Tallahassee.

Tallahassee has been a college town since 1851, when the West Florida Seminary was established.

The City of Tallahassee planning area history says the seminary later became the Florida State College for Women and is today Florida State University. The same timeline lists the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in 1887, the Lively Vocational Technical School in 1931 and the Tallahassee Community College in 1966.

The names keep changing while the pattern holds. The community college established in 1966 now operates as Tallahassee State College, which says it has served Leon, Gadsden and Wakulla counties for more than half a century from its Main Campus and satellite centers.

The Census Bureau counts Tallahassee college students where they live and sleep most of the time, not at their parents' home.

The U.S. Census Bureau explains that the Census Act of 1790 established usual residence as the main principle in determining where people should be counted, and defines it as the place where a person lives and sleeps most of the time. For students it answers the question directly: college students living away from home are counted where they are living on April 1, 2020, not at their parents' home. An FSU sophomore from Miami in a residence hall on the Tallahassee campus is therefore a Tallahassee resident for census purposes, and so is a FAMU graduate student renting an apartment in the city.

Many students live in group quarters rather than ordinary households. The ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates count a group quarters population of 18,020 in Tallahassee and 18,666 in all of Leon County, so about 97 percent of the county's group quarters residents live inside the city.

Students pull Tallahassee's median age and household income well below the metro and state figures and push its share of movers far above them.

The city profile gives a median age of 28.2 in the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates, against 34.8 for the Tallahassee metro area and 42.6 for Florida.

Turnover is the second signature. In the Tallahassee social profile, 28.4% of city residents age 1 and over lived in a different house a year earlier, compared with 19.6% in the metro area and 13.7% statewide (Florida profile).

Income figures are also pulled down, because most students report little earned income. Tallahassee's median household income was $57,409 and its per capita income $36,567 in the city economic profile, against a metro median of $65,261 (metro profile). At the same time, 51.3% of Tallahassee residents 25 and over hold a bachelor's degree or higher, against 34.1% for Florida.

Because about nine in ten of the county's undergraduates live in the city, Leon County figures soften the student effect without erasing it.

The Leon County profile counts 297,542 residents with a median age of 32.0 in the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates, compared with 28.2 for the city alone. In the county social profile, 22.0% of residents lived in a different house a year earlier, against 28.4% inside Tallahassee.

Household size tells a related story. Tallahassee counted 85,311 households averaging 2.16 persons, smaller than the 2.27 for Leon County and the 2.51 for Florida in the same survey, and ZIP code 32304 alone counted 19,241 households (32304 social profile).

ZIP code 32304 is the student core of Tallahassee, with a median age of 22.0 in the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates.

The 32304 demographic profile counts 51,673 Tallahassee residents in the ZIP code, and its social profile shows that 49.1% of residents age 1 and over lived in a different house a year earlier. Median household income in 32304 was $32,348 (32304 economic profile), about half the metro amount, and the 32304 housing profile puts the median value of owner-occupied homes at $150,900 and the median gross rent at $1,176.

ZIP code 32312 shows the opposite pattern. Its demographic profile gives a median age of 44.3, its social profile shows only 9.7% of residents in a different house a year earlier, and its economic profile puts median household income at $123,032. Side by side, the two ZIP codes show how much of Tallahassee's statistical profile depends on where the line is drawn around the campuses.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the Census Bureau's ACS 2020-2024 5-year tables for the city, county, metro area, state and ZIP codes 32304 and 32312, the Census residence rule page, the City of Tallahassee area history and the FSU, FAMU and TSC enrollment pages.