To determine how many students were in each bus, we need to first find out how many students were left after accounting for the 4 who rode in cars.
- Start with the total number of students: 472.
- Subtract the number of students who rode in cars: \[ 472 - 4 = 468 \text{ students} \]
- This means that 468 students rode on the buses. Since there are 9 buses, we divide the number of students by the number of buses: \[ \frac{468}{9} = 52 \text{ students per bus} \]
The answer is 52 students.