2025 Compare Cities Education:
Thornton, CO vs Spirit Lake, IA

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Highlights
- Spirit Lake spends 25.6% more per student than Thornton.
- The Student Teacher Ratio is 21.9% lower in Spirit Lake than in Thornton. (lower means fewer students in each classroom).
- Spirit Lake had 7.6% more residents who had graduated High School compared to Thornton
 Thornton, COSpirit Lake, IAUnited States
 Expend. per Student  Unlock$18,642$15,905
 Educ. Expend. per Student$11,298  Unlock$13,142
 Instr. Expend. per Student  Unlock$6,657$7,999
 Pupil/Teacher Ratio18.67  Unlock16.23
 Students per Librarian  Unlock4934573
 Students per Counselor324  Unlock530
 Grade School Educ.  Unlock0.1%4.8%
 Some High School Educ.7.2%  Unlock6.3%
 High School Educ.  Unlock94.6%88.9%
 Some College Educ.22.4%  Unlock20.0%
 2 yr College Grad.  Unlock12.4%8.7%
 4 yr College Grad.29.4%  Unlock33.7%
 Masters Grad.  Unlock3.5%9.3%
 Professional Degree1.0%  Unlock2.2%
 Doctorate Degree  Unlock0.0%1.5%
Reviews for Thornton    5 Reviews

Good place. Very suburbany (similar to the Springs). The houses are very small and old and yet still very expensive (albeit cheaper than southern Denver). Actually lots  More

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Over 5 years ago

I like Denver metro, but some cities aren’t too great. Thornton being one of them. Moved here because of highway access, and convenience to DIA for business travel. Am  More

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Over 10 years ago

The quality of life here in not good. The traffic is bad all the time. To try to get to the mountains takes forever! Also most lakes along the front range you can't even  More

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Reviews for Spirit Lake    1 Reviews

Over 18 years ago

We moved from a medium sized city in the West (about 100,000) to Spirit Lake a few years ago. Although it took a little while to get used to living in a small town  More

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