Objective/Research Question: Many localities have implemented promise programs, which cover tuition for students to attend college based on residency criteria. These "free college" programs have been shown to increase student enrollment, creating the need for additional institutional resources to support student graduation. We analyzed…

This publication includes tables with data on public elementary and secondary education revenues and expenditures at the local education agency (LEA) or school district level for fiscal year (FY) 2023. Specifically, the tables include finance data on the following topics: (1) Current expenditure totals and current expenditure per pupil amounts by…

This publication provides information on the flow of government funding for vocational education and training (VET) in Australia. The publication is based on 2024 data provided by the Australian, state and territory government departments responsible for administering funds for Australia's VET system.

This paper delves into the effects of public investment on primary school enrollment in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) across three decades, from 1990 to 2020. Autoregressive distributed lag models are employed to evaluate their long-term relationship for the whole sample and four distinct sub-samples while also probing the potential…

Amidst chronic disparities in per-student resources, how best to construct funding formulas to equitably fund colleges and universities is an enduring policy concern. This brief focuses on a historically overlooked financial mechanism, categorical funding, to examine its role in funding (in)equity. Leveraging illustrative data from four…

This First Look report introduces new data for national and state-level public elementary and secondary revenues and expenditures for fiscal year (FY) 2022. Specifically, this report includes the following school finance data: (1) revenue and expenditure totals; (2) revenues by source; (3) expenditures by function, subfunction, and object; (4)…

"Leading Thoughtful Conversations about School-by-School Spending Data" is a product of a federally-funded study to support the US Department of Education and the field more broadly to understand what data visualizations work to fuel thoughtful conversation among district and school leaders on financial strategy and management. This…

Between 1999 and 2018, 210 shootings have occurred on public school campuses in the United States. The increased need for security and student support may crowd out instructional resources post-shooting. Shootings may also cause students, especially those from socioeconomically advantaged backgrounds, to move away, leading to declines in…

To investigate the relationship between Chinese university funding and academic output, we collected data on the scale and the structure of funding and academic output of 36 World-Class universities under construction in China during 2013-21 and 2014-22. Furthermore, we empirically analyzed the effects of funding scale and structure on academic…

This research analyzes the magnitude and distribution of higher education subsidies by socioeconomic status in the United States and its changes between 2004 and 2016. Various types of subsidy, including governmental, institutional, and other private sources are taken into account and the variations within and between sectors of higher education…

I examine whether the impact of the Great Recession on school district spending, the allocation of resources, and student achievement varied depending on the strength of state's teachers' unions. Employing a diff-in-diff-in-diff identification strategy, I find that school districts in states with strong teachers' unions experienced significantly…

Between 2020 and 2021, Congress appropriated nearly $190 billion in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding for K-12 schools. Passed in three waves, ESSER is by far the largest federal infusion ever provided to K-12 schools--more than 11 times annual Title I spending and almost five times as large as total federal K-12…

This statistical analysis report presents key findings and other data highlights from School-Level Finance Survey (SLFS) in school years 2015-16 and 2016-17. The report focuses on (1) the completeness and comparability of SLFS data and (2) how the SLFS can be utilized to evaluate differences in resource allocation (as measured by school-level…

How progressive is school spending when spending is measured at the school-level, instead of the district-level? We use the first dataset on school-level spending across schools throughout the United States to ask to what extent progressivity patterns previously examined across districts are amplified, nullified, or reversed, upon disaggregation…

Background: The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA; 2015) constituted a reauthorization of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and replaced the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. ESSA, although still recognizing the need of standardized testing, diverged from NCLB by transferring a significant amount of power over…