# Where does all the money in the american education system go? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 5, 2013, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688 "2013-07-05T03:46:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![fieldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@fieldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fieldfish)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/1 "2013-07-05T03:46:57Z")
Supposedly the United States invests more money in education on a per student basis [than the majority of other countries](http://mercatus.org/publication/k-12-spending-student-oecd) in the world and our educational outcomes do not seem to reflect investment. Speaking very generally here I believe most people are under the impression that teachers are underpaid and classes have gotten too large. If that is the case then where is the money going? I would imagine the conservative explanation for this would be that it mostly goes to fund the bureaucracy in place to manage the system. Is this true? ---
**Author:** ![Drum\_God](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drum_god/32/44_2.png) [@Drum\_God](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drum_God)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/2 "2013-07-05T04:02:33Z")
I’m not going to take the time to extensively research this right now, but I believe that your thesis is flawed. In the United States, we do not (generally) track students. Public schools take all students who show up. Some of those students are quite expensive. In other countries, those students may have been tracked out of the public school and are looked after some other way. So, the average per student for the US is higher because we teach everyone, including those students who are quite expensive to work with. ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/3 "2013-07-05T04:09:09Z")
Looking at the [2013 Budget for Charles County, Maryland](http://www2.ccboe.com/PDF/Budget/FY2013_operating_budget.pdf), page 12, has a couple of graphs. For those too lazy to look, if you break it down one way: 66% - classroom instruction 12% - Maintenance and Capital Outlays 9% - Student Transportation 9% - School Administration 3% - Central Administration 1% - Student and Community Services If you break it down another way: 80% - Salaries and Benefits 12% - Contracted Services 5% - Utilities, Transfers 3% - Supplies and Materials 12% for All adminstration doesn’t seem too bad to me. Seems like the majority is going to teacher salaries. EDIT: I don’t claim this is representative, just the first site I came across. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/4 "2013-07-05T04:29:22Z")
Here are some costs in the U.S. K-12 system which may not be so high in comparable countries: - The U.S. has a lot of relatively small school districts, each of which has an administrative cost. For example, Australia does not have school districts like that: each state is effectively one school district. - The school bus system is included in the cost of education in the U.S. In countries where most students catch ordinary public transport to school (if they don’t walk or bike there), the cost of the transportation may not be counted as part of the cost of education. - The school districts pay health insurance for most staff in the U.S. In other countries, health is mostly paid for out of ordinary taxes, and costs a lost less per head. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/5 "2013-07-05T04:34:45Z")
> [@Drum\_God](#): > > I’m not going to take the time to extensively research this right now, but I believe that your thesis is flawed. In the United States, we do not (generally) track students. Public schools take all students who show up. Some of those students are quite expensive. In other countries, those students may have been tracked out of the public school and are looked after some other way. So, the average per student for the US is higher because we teach everyone, including those students who are quite expensive to work with. Meh we do the same in Australia, anyone can get a free public education. I think that what you may find (supposition) is that those countries with centralised educational systems, like Australia etc are probably more efficient in delivering outcomes. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/6 "2013-07-05T04:38:48Z")
If you ranked education spending by percentage of the GDP, the United States is no longer so high on the list: Denmark - 7.53% Sweden - 6.57% Belgium - 6.41% Finland - 6.30% Norway - 6.10% New Zealand - 6.09% Ireland - 5.98% Argentina - 5.96% Israel - 5.84% France - 5.79% Austria - 5.71% Brazil - 5.55% Portugal - 5.52% Switzerland - 5.49% Netherlands - 5.35% United Kingdom - 5.33% United States - 5.29% Mexico - 5.03% Poland - 5.03% South Korea - 4.87% Spain - 4.86% Hungary - 4.82% South Africa - 4.76% Russia - 4.69% Columbia - 4.65% Germany - 4.53% Italy - 4.52% Australia - 4.47% Czech Rep - 4.23% Slovakia - 4.12% Chile - 3.70% Japan - 3.56% India - 3.49% Indonesia - 3.06% Singapore - 3.01% Hong Kong - 2.99% [cite](http://thelearningcurve.pearson.com/data-bank/education-input-indicators/indicator/TTSA) We’re actually about in the middle of the pack in terms of education spending. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/7 "2013-07-05T04:41:05Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > Here are some costs in the U.S. K-12 system which may not be so high in comparable countries: > > - The U.S. has a lot of relatively small school districts, each of which has an administrative cost. For example, Australia does not have school districts like that: each state is effectively one school district. > > - The school bus system is included in the cost of education in the U.S. In countries where most students catch ordinary public transport to school (if they don’t walk or bike there), the cost of the transportation may not be counted as part of the cost of education. > > - The school districts pay health insurance for most staff in the U.S. In other countries, health is mostly paid for out of ordinary taxes, and costs a lost less per head. Just to answer a couple of these. Spot on about school districts, it seems so inefficient to have this system. Medicare is taken direct from salary and is paid for by the department, private health care is not. So yes this is an important stat but not dramatic? Public transport when required is subsidized by the government, for example my kids get free bus travel (and all public transport) as we live more than 4kms from the school. High school sports like those in the US don’t exist in Australia. Not sure if this is a positive or negative drain on finances. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/8 "2013-07-05T04:50:52Z")
It is something of a myth that the outcomes, on average, of the US K-12 educational system are markedly worse than those of other developed countries. The idea that America’s schools as a whole are a disaster area is largely propaganda from the right, who would like to privatize much of the education system and turn it into a source of profit. (Of course the truly bad, under-resourced schools serving the poorer communities would be left to the government to run.) It is true that some schools, almost always those serving poor and or non-English speaking (as a first language) communities can be very bad, but that is largely a reflection of the fact that American society is noticeably more economically unequal than those of most other developed countries, and of the way that US schools are largely locally financed, so that the schools that need the most resources very often get the least (because poor people just have less money to pay in taxes). There is really nothing much wrong with most American public schools that are in wealthy, or middle -class, and relatively racially homogeneous areas. Nothing that isn’t wrong with schools everywhere, anyway. (Although the constant attacks on the job-security and morale of the teaching profession by so-called educational “reformers” can only make things worse.) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/9 "2013-07-05T08:02:46Z")
I do a lot of general reading but am forgetful of details. I guessed the answer to OP, but read the thread with interest to fight my own ignorance. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > If you ranked education spending by percentage of the GDP, the United States is no longer so high on the list:… > We’re actually about in the middle of the pack in terms of education spending. > [@njtt](#): > > It is something of a myth that the outcomes, on average, of the US K-12 educational system are markedly worse than those of other developed countries. The idea that America’s schools as a whole are a disaster area is largely propaganda from the right, who would like to privatize much of the education system and turn it into a source of profit. (Of course the truly bad, under-resourced schools serving the poorer communities would be left to the government to run.) I think I guessed right. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![fieldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@fieldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fieldfish)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/10 "2013-07-05T10:04:43Z")
Thank you guys for the insight, I hadn’t considered things like transportation costs and how they differ between countries. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > If you ranked education spending by percentage of the GDP, the United States is no longer so high on the list: > > We’re actually about in the middle of the pack in terms of education spending. Why would GDP percentage be a better measure of educational costs than per student expenditure? ---
**Author:** ![fieldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@fieldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fieldfish)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/11 "2013-07-05T10:31:36Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > It is something of a myth that the outcomes, on average, of the US K-12 educational system are markedly worse than those of other developed countries. The idea that America’s schools as a whole are a disaster area is largely propaganda from the right, who would like to privatize much of the education system and turn it into a source of profit. (Of course the truly bad, under-resourced schools serving the poorer communities would be left to the government to run.) It is true that some schools, almost always those serving poor and or non-English speaking (as a first language) communities can be very bad, but that is largely a reflection of the fact that American society is noticeably more economically unequal than those of most other developed countries, and of the way that US schools are largely locally financed, so that the schools that need the most resources very often get the least (because poor people just have less money to pay in taxes). > > There is really nothing much wrong with most American public schools that are in wealthy, or middle -class, and relatively racially homogeneous areas. Nothing that isn’t wrong with schools everywhere, anyway. (Although the constant attacks on the job-security and morale of the teaching profession by so-called educational “reformers” can only make things worse.) I’m familiar with the conservative argument on privatizing schools, typically the solution offered is a voucher system. My question wasn’t meant as a set up to suggesting that privatization is the solution, I’m just trying to identify how the funding we are spending is being allocated. Sorry for the doublepost, guess I waited too long to edit. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/12 "2013-07-05T10:34:24Z")
> [@fieldfish](#): > > Why would GDP percentage be a better measure of educational costs than per student expenditure? It shows the relative importance different countries place on public education. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/13 "2013-07-05T10:42:40Z")
> [@fieldfish](#): > > Why would GDP percentage be a better measure of educational costs than per student expenditure? > [@bob\_2](#): > > It shows the relative importance different countries place on public education. I think it also might speak to the standard of living and cost of labor in different countries; if you’re in a country where people can make a lot of money in other jobs, you’re generally going to have to pay teachers more. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/14 "2013-07-05T11:36:30Z")
> [@Drum\_God](#): > > In other countries, those students may have been tracked out of the public school and are looked after some other way. So, the average per student for the US is higher because we teach everyone, including those students who are quite expensive to work with. I’m not sure they’re “tracked out of the public school”. Rather, they don’t follow the “main track”. Let’s assume for instance that a German student is sent to some technical school instead of the regular highschool. There stil will be teachers, and buildings, and possibly machine tools, etc… I’m not sure it will be any less costly. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/15 "2013-07-05T11:41:42Z")
> [@fieldfish](#): > > Why would GDP percentage be a better measure of educational costs than per student expenditure? Not sure it’s necessarily a better measure, but I suppose that a book in Turkey (lowest spending in your graph) is significantly cheaper than the same book in Switzerland (highest spending in your graph). That should be somehow taken into account. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/16 "2013-07-05T15:12:13Z")
One driver of the cost of public education is the rise of special education. About one in eight students receive special education services and those costs are about double what a regular student costs. Finland, Iceland, and the Czech republic are the only other countries with similar or higher rates of special education. Germany has 5.3%, the UK has 3.2% and France has 3.1% [cite](http://aei.pitt.edu/9286/1/Powell2.pdf) Overall America is toward the top of the rankings in teacher salary and toward the bottom in student/teacher ratio. ---
**Author:** ![Bremidon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@Bremidon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bremidon)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/17 "2013-07-05T15:44:19Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > It shows the relative importance different countries place on public education. This is not strictly true. If someone else is taking care of your defense, then you are going to have more money to spend on education. This does not mean that you don’t care about defense, only that someone else has picked up the tab. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/18 "2013-07-05T16:12:43Z")
> [@fieldfish](#): > > Why would GDP percentage be a better measure of educational costs than per student expenditure? Because cost of living is very different from country to country, and currency exchange rates do not accurately reflect it. GDP percentage measures what fraction of all spending is used for education, which is a better way to measure how expensive education is compared to everything else in that country. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/19 "2013-07-05T17:26:43Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I’m not sure they’re “tracked out of the public school”. Rather, they don’t follow the “main track”. Let’s assume for instance that a German student is sent to some technical school instead of the regular highschool. There stil will be teachers, and buildings, and possibly machine tools, etc… I’m not sure it will be any less costly. I don’t think technical schooling is what’s being addressed. I think it’s “special needs” children, children who are blind, deaf, autistic, etc. Where before they would be sent to specialist schools, now they’re sent to their local schools, whenever possible, and that increases staffing. As a local example, for a least the first year in school, some autistic children have a tutor who accompanies them to class, to observe and to step in if there is a meltdown. Oddly, tutors are not supposed to say that they’re there for anyone in particular, but they’re technically not allowed to interact with any of the other kids. I say technically, because it’s impossible to keep interactions to zero. Most kids figure out Extra Big Person X is there for Student Y. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688/20 "2013-07-05T17:32:45Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > - The school districts pay health insurance for most staff in the U.S. In other countries, health is mostly paid for out of ordinary taxes, and costs a lost less per head. In many countries with UHC, healthcare is paid out of a specific healthcare-system tax, which may or may not be shared by employee and employer (shared is the case for Spain). in some others, it’s paid for by the employee (eg Switzerland). In any case it’s part of the education budget. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-all-the-money-in-the-american-education-system-go/662688.md?page=2)