NCES prepares an annual compilation of federal funds for education. Data for U.S. Department of Education programs come from the Budget of the United States Government. Budget offices of other federal agencies provide information for all other federal program support except for research funds, which are obligations reported by the National Science Foundation in Federal Funds for Research and Development. Some data are estimated, based on reports from the federal agencies contacted and the Budget of the United States Government.
Except for money spent on research, outlays were used to report program funds to the extent possible. Some tables report program funds as obligations, as noted in the title of the table. Some federal program funds not commonly recognized as education assistance are also included in the totals reported. For example, portions of federal funds paid to some states and counties as shared revenues resulting from the sale of timber and minerals from public lands have been estimated as funds used for education purposes. Parts of the funds received by states (in 1980) and localities (all years) under the General Revenue Sharing Program are also included, as are portions of federal funds received by the District of Columbia. The share of these funds allocated to education was assumed to be equal to the share of general funds expended for elementary and secondary education by states and localities in the same year as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau in its annual publication, Governmental Finances.
All state intergovernmental expenditures for education were assumed to be earmarked for elementary/secondary education. Contributions of parent governments of dependent school systems to their public schools amounted to approximately 9 percent of local government revenues and local government revenue sharing in each year. Therefore, 9 percent of local government revenue-sharing funds were assumed allocated each fiscal year to elementary and secondary education. Parent government contributions to public school systems were obtained from Finances of Public School Systems published by the U.S. Census Bureau. The amount of state revenue-sharing funds allocated for postsecondary education in 1980 was assumed to be 13 percent, the proportion of direct state expenditures for institutions of higher education reported in Governmental Finances for that year.
The share of federal funds for the District of Columbia assigned to education was assumed to be equal to the share of the city's general fund expenditures for each level of education.
For the job training programs conducted by the Department of Labor, only estimated sums spent on classroom training have been reported as educational program support.
During the 1970s, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) prepared annual reports on federal education program support. These were published in the Budget of the United States Government, Special Analyses. The information presented in this report is not, however, a continuation of the OMB series. A number of differences in the two series should be noted. OMB required all federal agencies to report outlays for education-related programs using a standardized form, thereby assuring agency compliance in reporting. The scope of education programs reported here differs from OMB. Off-budget items such as the annual volume of guaranteed student loans were not included in OMB's reports. Finally, while some mention is made of an annual estimate of federal tax expenditures, OMB did not include them in its annual analysis of federal education support. Estimated federal tax expenditures for education are the difference between current federal tax receipts and what these receipts would be without existing education deductions to income allowed by federal tax provisions.
Recipients' data are estimated based on Estimating Federal Funds for Education: A New Approach Applied to Fiscal Year 1980, Federal Support for Education, various years, and Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance. The recipients' data are estimated and tend to undercount institutions of higher education (IHEs), students, and local education agencies (LEAs). This is because some of the federal programs have more than one recipient receiving funds. In these cases, the recipients were put into a "mixed recipients" category, because there was no way to disaggregate the amount each recipient received.
Further information on federal support for education may be obtained from:
William Sonnenberg
Annual Reports Program (ECICSD)
National Center for Education Statistics
1990 K Street NW
Washington, DC 20006
William.Sonnenberg@ed.gov
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/AnnualReports/federal.asp
NCES Sources