Stanford, California

Area Profile

18,662 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Stanford, in Santa Clara County.

Area Score unavailable

Missing required signal: growth. AreaProfile withholds a score rather than inferring the missing dimensions.

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 33% of 3,904 published cities64
Housing affordability4192nd of 4,223 published cities25
ClimateTop 8% of 4,223 published cities89
Physical resilience3339th of 4,182 published cities25
AccessTop 23% of 4,226 published cities97
Economic stability3945th of 4,226 published cities30
The quick read

Housing costs more relative to local incomes than in most published city profiles: rent takes 32% of median household income and the median home is 26.6 times it.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by earthquake, inland flooding and heat wave.

A major airport is 14 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
18,662
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$75,208
Top 39% nationally
Density
6,786/sq mi
2.8 sq mi of land
Median age
22.0
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Santa Clara County
California
Metro area
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
Nearest major airport
SJC
14 mi · Norman Y Mineta San Jose Intl
Median home value
$2,000,001
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.0% is lower than 62% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 0.7% over the past year, to 979,881 employed residents.

92% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 100% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$20,329$75,208Top 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$4,679$42,106Top 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate15.9%Top 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute16.3 minBottom 8%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher92.3%Top 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment979,881Top 5%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)0.2%Top 46%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.7%Top 48%June 2026
Labor force1,020,290Top 5%June 2026
Labor force participation52.6%Bottom 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$119,230Top 1%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$84,050Top 1%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.4%Bottom 21%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.0%Bottom 38%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202475k67k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $75,208 in the 2024 ACS 5-Year. Consecutive releases share four years of sample, so AreaProfile shows them as a record of successive estimates and does not compute a year-over-year change from them.
Largest occupations — San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Software Developers87,350$213,110
Home Health and Personal Care Aides49,610$37,640
Fast Food and Counter Workers23,060$44,570
Registered Nurses22,930$216,740
Computer and Information Systems Managers19,070$291,660
Retail Salespersons18,340$44,220

Occupational employment and wages are published for metropolitan areas rather than for individual cities or ZIP areas, so these describe the wider labor market this location sits in. 2025 OEWS, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes city-level labor data only for places of 25,000 or more. This is the figure for Santa Clara County, CA, which contains this city.

There are 18.6 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
2
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
18.6
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Escondido ElementaryPalo Alto Unified43218.0
Lucille M. Nixon ElementaryPalo Alto Unified35019.4

14.1% of students here are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. That describes the circumstances families arrive with rather than how the schools perform, which is why AreaProfile shows it and does not score it.

Public schools only, from the NCES Common Core of Data. Schools are placed by ZIP code, so this is which schools are in this place rather than which one a particular address is zoned for — district boundaries do not follow municipal ones, and enrollment zones change. Fully virtual schools are excluded: they enroll students from across the state while reporting one administrative address, and counting them here would describe a school population this place does not have. The assessment covers grades 3 through 8, so a high school shows no proficiency figure — a dash in those columns means the test was not given at that school, not that it performed badly. Proficiency is measured against California’s own standard, so it compares cleanly within the state and only broadly against other states; AreaProfile therefore ranks it within state. The directory is current, while the proficiency figures are from the last school year with national coverage before the pandemic interrupted testing.

Housing & affordability

How it’s calculated →

Median rent of $1,976 takes 32% of median household income, above the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 26.6 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
31.5%
Above the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
26.6×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,976
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$2,000,001
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income26.59Top 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate26.8%Bottom 2%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±3974,186Top 13%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$111$1,976Top 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value$2,000,001Top 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income31.5%Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate18.1%Top 27%2024 ACS 5-Year

Both affordability measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with, so the comparison is like for like. They describe housing cost against local earnings and are not a cost-of-living index — transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not included, and a place can look affordable here and still be expensive to live in for reasons this does not capture.

Growth & development

How it’s calculated →

No building-permit activity is published for this location by the Census Building Permits Survey.

Weather & climate

9 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 77°F and January a low of 42°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 13.4 inches.

30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station MOFFETT FEDERAL AIRFIELD, 6.7 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND2.9"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation13.4"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low42°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high77°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months91991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing17°F1991-2020 Normals

Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. They describe what a typical year looks like rather than what the weather is doing today.

Physical risk

25 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are earthquake, inland flooding and heat wave.

EarthquakeHigh
Inland floodingHigh
DroughtModerate
Heat waveModerate
AvalancheModerate

Low or minimal exposure: landslide, wildfire, coastal flooding, tornado, lightning, hail, tsunami, volcanic activity, strong wind, winter weather.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. City values are the population-weighted mean of the counties the city overlaps, using AreaProfile place-to-county land-area weights. FEMA does not endorse this presentation. Higher physical resilience means lower exposure.

These are deaths, not offences. AreaProfile does not publish reported crime, and this is not a substitute for it — it says nothing about burglary, theft or assault.

Santa Clara County records 1.7 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, lower than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 3.6 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 14.0 per 100,000 residents in Santa Clara County.

Homicide
1.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
3.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
14.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
7.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths

Firearm deaths count every intent together, and nationally the majority are suicides rather than homicides. The two columns overlap and should not be added.

Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Santa Clara County as a whole — these rates are not published below county level. A county can hold both a dense city centre and a suburb whose experience of it is nothing alike, so this describes the county around Stanford rather than Stanford itself. That is why AreaProfile shows these figures and does not put them in the Area Score. Where fewer than ten deaths were recorded the count is suppressed at source, and a rate built on single figures moves sharply between releases. What this measure has that reported crime does not: a death certificate is filed whether or not the local police agency submitted a return that year, so the figures stay comparable between places and over time.

What this profile does not cover

Three things people look for are missing from every AreaProfile page, and each is missing for a reason rather than by oversight. The Area Score is calculated without them and the weighting is documented on the methodology page.

Reported crime
The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer is the only source for reported offences with national coverage and a published method, and it requires an API key AreaProfile does not hold. Arrest counts, news volume and commercial “safety scores” are not substituted in the meantime. What is published above under Safety is a different measurement — deaths rather than offences, from death certificates rather than police returns — and it covers no property crime at all.
Taxes
No tax dataset has met the source admission test for coverage, transparent methodology and update cadence. Nothing here is individualized tax advice.
Full cost of living
No public source publishes one with national coverage and a documented method. Housing affordability above is computed from published rent, price and income, and excludes transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes — commuting cost in particular tends to offset suburban housing savings.

Access

6 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 14 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Norman Y Mineta San Jose IntlSJC14 mi11,000 ft
San Francisco IntlSFO17 mi11,870 ft
Oakland San Francisco BayOAK21 mi10,520 ft

Airport identity, position and runway data come from the FAA. “Major airport” is an AreaProfile classification — a public-use civil airport with a paved runway of at least 8,000 feet — not an FAA hub designation. Distances are straight-line, not driving distance.

Customize your score

What matters to you?

Choose what you weight most heavily. Nothing is saved to an account — your preferences stay in this browser, and the Area Score never changes.

Area Score
Your Score

Select one or more priorities to see how this location scores against them.

Other cities in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
San JoseSanta Clara County990,13861vs Stanford
SunnyvaleSanta Clara County154,23660vs Stanford
Santa ClaraSanta Clara County130,25664vs Stanford
Mountain ViewSanta Clara County83,73264vs Stanford
MilpitasSanta Clara County78,57858vs Stanford
Palo AltoSanta Clara County67,23763vs Stanford
GilroySanta Clara County59,00459vs Stanford
CupertinoSanta Clara County58,56658vs Stanford
Morgan HillSanta Clara County45,42562vs Stanford
HollisterSan Benito County43,81155vs Stanford
CampbellSanta Clara County42,78161vs Stanford
Los GatosSanta Clara County32,78654vs Stanford

Every city here is measured on the same scale from the same source releases, so the comparison is like for like. A higher Area Score reflects AreaProfile’s standardized weighting rather than a judgment about which is the better place to live.

Data & methodology

Used forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
Physical riskFederal Emergency Management Agency
National Risk Index
National Risk Index December 2025 (v1.20.0)Periodic dataset versions (v1.20.0 current)
ClimateNOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly)
1991-2020 NormalsEvery ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period)
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
2025 OEWSAnnual (spring release)
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Local Area Unemployment Statistics
June 2026Monthly
Demographics, Housing, Income, JobsU.S. Census Bureau
American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File)
2024 ACS 5-YearAnnual (5-year estimates released each December)
safetyU.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics
Provisional county-level mortality by intent
April, 2025 to March, 2026Quarterly, with a rolling twelve-month window alongside complete calendar years
schoolsU.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments
2024-25 school yearDirectory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them

Profile recalculated August 30, 2026. Recalculation is not the same as new source data — each figure above shows the period its source actually covers. Read the full methodology or browse every source.

ZIP codes in Stanford

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
9430518,509$83,088