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.