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This Map Shows How Much Each US State Spends On Education | Digg
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This Map Shows How Much Each US State Spends On Education

Darcy Jimenez
Darcy Jimenez
This Map Shows How Much Each US State Spends On Education
Eleven states allocated at least half of their total expenditure to K-12 and higher education.
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Using Kaiser Family Foundation data for the State Fiscal Year 2023, Visual Capitalist mapped state spending on K-12 and higher education as a share of each state's total expenditure.

Nevada spends the largest share of its total budget on education, with 62 percent earmarked, followed by Iowa (57 percent).

Of the 11 states that put at least half of their expenditure towards education, eight are in the South of the US. Mississippi and Alabama are tied for third place, with both allocating 56 percent of state spending to K-12 and higher education.

When it comes to actual numbers, California ($86 billion) spends more dollars on education than any other state. New York ($43 billion) and Texas ($42 billion) follow behind.

Click image to enlarge

US spending on education by state

Via Visual Capitalist.

Comments

  1. Max Roberts 1 week ago

    The numbers show just percent of state budget spent on education.

    One state can spend only 18% of budget on education, while another with great schools spends 57% of its budget on. Two more states spend almost as great a percent as 56% of their budgets on education.

    Massachusetts with the best public schools spends 18%
    Iowa with great public schools spends 57%, While
    Alabama and Mississippi with the worst schools spend 56%.
    Oregon where I Iive spends 23%, yet its public schools rank 44th in 50.

    Percentage of budget spent on schools tells little.

    MA's annual budget is much bigger than IA's, AL's, and MS's.

    How much spent per pupil tells little too. The best high school in Houston where I LIVED spent less considerably more per pupil than Houston's worst high school.

    That has to tell you something--like focus on qualitative differences among schools.

    Parents' education levels?
    Parents' attitude toward learning and books?
    Do both parents live under the same roof with their children?
    How ofter the parents talk to, vs. yell at, their children?
    How interactional and calm is the home atmosphere?
    Do parents follow their children's homework?
    How often do the children look at books?

    There should be better questions than these and rankable too if not always numerically comparable.

  2. D.B. 1 week ago

    Yeah, hot garbage of a chart. Statistics are great to hide a lie in.

    Illinois spends twice as much than Nevada, yet it is listed lower...because it has a bigger budget and population.

  3. Jeremy Walker 1 week ago

    This chart is pretty misleading; it pretends to show education spending, but what it really shows has a lot more to do with how much states spend on everything, not just education.

    Take Georgia (which spends half its budget on education) and California (which only spends 32%): it seems like Georgia cares much more about education, right?

    But it turns out Georgia's state budget, per capita (ie. adjusted for population) is $6,791, while California's is $10,556. Do the math and the two states spend almost an identical amount per capita ($3396 vs. $3377.92).

    1. eternal soul 1 week ago

      Yeah, but per capita comparisons are also misleading, since they assume costs for labor, supplies, utilities, real estate, etc. are the same between states. You would need to normalize the spending to get an accurate picture.

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