5 ms·

This is true in almost every country. Education is a money pit.

CharlesW 4y ago
> Education is a money pit. How exactly do you mean this? The U.S. spent $90.5 billion for "Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Education" in 2021* (a subset of "Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services"), which is 1.3% of $6.82 trillion in total 2021 government expenditures. Compare to $696.5B for Medicare, $754.8B for National Defense, etc. If anything, this illustrates how relatively unimportant a base level of education is in the U.S. * https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/spending/categories/ https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/spend...
- rayiner 4y ago
  As explained below your numbers are off by an order of magnitude. But I’m shocked to see such a basic misconception about how our government works on HN of all places.
- munificent 4y ago
  You're only looking at federal funding here. Most public school funding in the US comes from states. My state of Washingon spent $17.5 billion on schooling this year, on top of that federal funding.
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    Thank you for making that very important point. That looks like ~28% of the state budget, and per-student spending appears to very high (the 4th highest in the U.S.). Washington is spending 1.5X per student as compared to California, and is apparently not seeing commensurate improvements. I wonder if there are folks working on debugging the apparent inefficiencies of state education systems.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      It's often not even state budget in the US. In the case of my town, while I believe some money comes from the state in the form of grants etc., about 60% of my town's property taxes go to funding the elementary school and a split (with two other towns) of the regional high school district.
- yourcousinbilly 4y ago
  “Total expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools in the United States were $800 billion in 2018–19 (in constant 2020–21 dollars). This amounts to $15,621 per public school pupil enrolled in the fall of that year.” https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66 https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66
- jandrewrogers 4y ago
  The US government spends significantly more on education than the military, ~$800B on K-12 education alone. On a per student basis, the US spends more than almost any other country in the world. If US education is poor, it isn't for lack of government spending. Per the US Department of Education[0], the US spends 34% more per student than the OECD average. At the post-secondary level, the US spends double the OECD average. [0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-expenditures-by-country https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp...
- balderdash 4y ago
  Yeah except 1) discretionary spending (including defense is like 25% of total spending (with defense ~1/2 of that), so the 90b is a meaningful part of discretionary spending. 2) as others have pointed out, the vast majority of (80%-90%+?) is funded by state and local government. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57172 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57172
thatguy0900 4y ago
Education is the opposite of a money pit, education is an investment. Even if it is managed poorly,you are better off than the country with a people that can't read.

> Education is a money pit. How exactly do you mean this? The U.S. spent $90.5 billion for "Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Education" in 2021* (a subset of "Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services"), which is 1.3% of $6.82 trillion in total 2021 government expenditures. Compare to $696.5B for Medicare, $754.8B for National Defense, etc. If anything, this illustrates how relatively unimportant a base level of education is in the U.S. * https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/spending/categories/ https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/spend...

rayiner 4y ago
As explained below your numbers are off by an order of magnitude. But I’m shocked to see such a basic misconception about how our government works on HN of all places.
munificent 4y ago
You're only looking at federal funding here. Most public school funding in the US comes from states. My state of Washingon spent $17.5 billion on schooling this year, on top of that federal funding.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  Thank you for making that very important point. That looks like ~28% of the state budget, and per-student spending appears to very high (the 4th highest in the U.S.). Washington is spending 1.5X per student as compared to California, and is apparently not seeing commensurate improvements. I wonder if there are folks working on debugging the apparent inefficiencies of state education systems.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    It's often not even state budget in the US. In the case of my town, while I believe some money comes from the state in the form of grants etc., about 60% of my town's property taxes go to funding the elementary school and a split (with two other towns) of the regional high school district.
yourcousinbilly 4y ago
“Total expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools in the United States were $800 billion in 2018–19 (in constant 2020–21 dollars). This amounts to $15,621 per public school pupil enrolled in the fall of that year.” https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66 https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66
jandrewrogers 4y ago
The US government spends significantly more on education than the military, ~$800B on K-12 education alone. On a per student basis, the US spends more than almost any other country in the world. If US education is poor, it isn't for lack of government spending. Per the US Department of Education[0], the US spends 34% more per student than the OECD average. At the post-secondary level, the US spends double the OECD average. [0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-expenditures-by-country https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp...
balderdash 4y ago
Yeah except 1) discretionary spending (including defense is like 25% of total spending (with defense ~1/2 of that), so the 90b is a meaningful part of discretionary spending. 2) as others have pointed out, the vast majority of (80%-90%+?) is funded by state and local government. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57172 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57172

thatguy0900 4y ago

Education is the opposite of a money pit, education is an investment. Even if it is managed poorly,you are better off than the country with a people that can't read.