Education in States and Nations: 1991

(ESN) Indicator 32: Current public expenditure per student

Current public expenditure per student is a measure of public investment adjusted for the number of students in the education system. It is the part of current education expenditure that is financed from public sources divided by the number of full-time-equivalent students enrolled in the education system, including those enrolled in private schools. It reflects the general purchasing power (or standard of living) given up (through public sources) to support the education of each student. Variations in per student expenditure result from differences in national and state spending priorities, the cost of local educational resources relative to other goods, the size of the corresponding private education sector, and the wealth of a country or state.

• In 1991, current public expenditure per student at the primary through secondary level in the United States was $4,605, the highest of the 6 G-7 countries represented here. This was close to the $4,338 spent by Canada, but considerably more than the per-student expenditures at that level of education in the other G-7 countries - France, Italy, West Germany, and Japan - that had comparable data.

• The range of per-student public expenditure at the primary through secondary level across the U.S. states was wider than that across the countries represented here: from approximately $2,600 in Mississippi to over $7,900 in Alaska for the states; and from about $1,400 in Hungary to approximately $5,800 in Sweden for the countries.

• Current public expenditure per student at the higher education level in the United States was $6,767 in 1991. This was below the per- student public expenditure at the higher education level in Canada and the United Kingdom at $8,555 and $10,228, respectively, but higher than those in the other four G-7 countries.

• Per-student public expenditures in higher education among U.S. states ranged from slightly more than $3,600 in New Hampshire to nearly $13,000 in Alaska, more than 3 times higher. The range across the countries represented here extended about as wide, with Japan spending less than $2,400 per student and the United Kingdom spending more than $10,200 per student.

Notes on interpretation:

In some countries, particularly the United States and Japan, a large portion of expenditure on higher education comes from private sources, which are not included in this indicator. See the supplemental note to Indicator 32 for data on private higher education expenditure in certain countries.

This per-student expenditure measure excludes private spending but includes private-school students. It is calculated as current public expenditure for education divided by enrollment at both public and private schools. Thus, this is a measure of average public investment per student in the education system. It is not a measure of the total resources a student receives, which would include private expenditure.

Whereas a purchasing-power parity index is used to adjust expenditure figures across countries for variations in the cost-of-living, no such adjustment is made across states.

The higher education expenditure figure subsumes both non-university and university higher education. In effect, it is a weighted average of current public expenditure for the two types of higher education.

Table 31b

Figure 32a