Public Information Office CB00-96
301-457-3030/301-457-3670 (fax)
301-457-1037 (TDD)
e-mail: pio@census.gov
Sharon Meade
301-457-1574
New Jersey Spent Most Per Student on
Education in 1997, Census Bureau Reports
New Jersey, New York, Alaska and Connecticut led all states in the
amount of money spent per student on elementary and secondary education in
1997, according to the Commerce Department's Census Bureau.
New Jersey spent the most per student, $9,461, followed by New York,
$8,467; Alaska, $8,213; and Connecticut $7,998. The same four states led
the nation in per-student spending in FY 1996. The national average was
$5,873 in 1997. States spending the least per student were: Idaho,
$4,415 South Dakota, $4,392; Arizona, $4,334; Mississippi, $4,035; and
Utah, $3,810.
Other findings:
- State governments contributed the greatest share of public elementary
and secondary school funding, $150 billion (49 percent), closely
followed by local governments, $138 billion (45 percent) and the
federal government, $20 billion (6 percent).
- Total expenditures by public school systems totaled $311.7 billion in
1997, an increase of $18.9 billion (6 percent). About $166 billion
(53 percent) in expenditures was spent on instruction, another
$91 billion (29 percent) for services that support instruction,
$32 billion (10 percent) for capital outlay and $23 billion (7 percent)
for other non-instructional expenditures.
- School districts invested $23 billion in school construction in 1997,
20 percent more than the $19 billion spent in 1996.
- Total school district debt increased 14 percent to $126 billion in
1997. New York ($2.8 billion), Texas ($2.2 billion), Pennsylvania
($2.1 billion) and Michigan ($1.5 billion) borrowed more than
$1.5 billion each for building construction, reconstruction and
refinancing.
The tabulations from the 1997 Census of Governments, Public Education
Finances, provide financial statistics for public elementary and secondary
education. The tables contain data on revenues, expenditures and debt for
individual public elementary and secondary school systems with enrollments
of 5,000 students or more.
The tables also include state rankings of elementary-secondary school
revenues and expenditures per pupil and rankings based on the relation of
elementary-secondary revenues and expenditures to state personal income.
Data for this report come from all elementary and secondary schools and
are not subject to sampling error. Quality assurance procedures were
applied to all phases of collection, processing and tabulation to minimize
errors. However, the data are still subject to possible error from
miscoding and difficulties in identifying every unit that should be
included in the report.
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