Understanding how urban school districts allocate their education funds can help school leaders create more effective budgeting strategies and provide a basis for advocating for additional funding when necessary. This report provides an overview of how urban districts distribute their financial resources, highlights key areas of spending, and…

State funding for higher education is one of the most pressing issues facing both institutions and policymakers in 2022. Colorado has seen significant declines in the amount of state funding per student over the past two decades, resulting in increases in student burdens for tuition. Policy discourse analysis through a poststructural and…

Budget season isn't any easier for school finance officials this year than it was last year, when they were bracing for a pandemic-driven recession, extra expenses, and ever-changing logistical demands due to COVID-19. This second of three Quality Counts 2021 installments surveys school- and district-level leaders on their spending hurdles,…

In times of financial crises, it is crucial to understand how district leaders prioritize spending to ensure an adequate and equitable education for all students. This paper examines how districts in Alabama altered spending during the Great Recession. Results demonstrate that expenditure cuts were more intense for high needs student populations,…

While state appropriations are the largest revenue source of the U.S. public university systems, they have declined significantly over the past several decades. Surprisingly, there is little empirical work on the effect of state appropriation cuts on the research productivity of public universities. Helping fill that gap, this paper is the first…

How did State U. get so expensive? A leading culprit is reduced state support. Since 1987, the typical student at a public college or university has seen the government subsidy for her education drop by $2,337, or roughly one quarter. And in prior research, the author found that every $1,000 in state divestment leads colleges to raise tuition by…

Many states have already made and proposed budget cuts in response to the COVID-19-induced recession's impact on revenue. Since state revenues lag the economy, it is a safe bet state budget problems will worsen before they improve. More specific predictions can be made by looking closely at what happened in the last major recession. This brief…

As state leaders consider needed updates to the Commonwealth's school funding formula, they should remember just how well the approach taken by Tom Birmingham, former Massachusetts state Senate president, and co-author of the 1993 Education Reform Act worked. Beginning in 1993, Massachusetts' SAT scores rose for 13 consecutive years. The state's…

Public higher education produces many benefits that are vital to the New England economy, but it is increasingly at risk following years of state budget cuts. In 2017 in New England, real per-student state funding for higher education was lower than it was in 2008, with a double-digit decline in each of the region's states except Maine. States…

In aggregate, state appropriations are the largest revenue source for public higher education in the United States. However, these appropriations have significantly declined over past decades, drawing serious concerns about the potential negative impact on schools and students. This paper provides a more comprehensive study of the effects of state…

Ohio schools will go backward under Governor Kasich's funding proposal, which does not keep up with inflation. Funding for the Ohio Department of Education from all state sources, including the General Revenue Fund, casino revenues and tax reimbursements, increases by just 3.2 percent in the governor's proposal for fiscal years (FYs) 2018 and 2019…

After years of slow erosion of funding and enrollment, higher education in Wisconsin faces a flash flood. Financial challenges had been accumulating for the state's public colleges and universities, brought on by stagnant state funding, a tuition freeze, and declining enrollment. Now COVID-19 threatens to wash away key pieces of this system,…

Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) invited 10 districts to participate in a community of practice designed to increase understanding of how to braid and blend federal funds. District teams composed of principals, superintendents, business managers, and other district leaders participated in four 90-minute virtual sessions. The purpose of…

A significant body of work on the economics of education establishes links between specific interventions, such as class size reduction or increased teacher pay, and educational attainment (often measured by graduation rates). Many of these interventions rely on increased funding, so the current study builds upon previous work by analyzing the…

After years of slow erosion of funding and enrollment, higher education in Wisconsin faces a flash flood. Financial challenges had been accumulating for the state's public colleges and universities, brought on by a tuition freeze, stagnant state funding, and demographic trends. Now COVID-19 threatens to wash away key pieces of a system that will…