Weekly Fiscal Facts are provided to Wisconsin Newspaper Association members by the Wisconsin Policy Forum, the state’s leading resource for nonpartisan state and local government research and civic education. The Wisconsin Policy Forum logo can be downloaded here.
Spending per pupil by Wisconsin public schools has lagged inflation in recent years and fallen further behind the U.S. average.
This is due to a series of policy choices, including a recent two-year freeze on state-imposed caps on school district revenues, that have also helped to hold down state and local taxes. In a related trend, the share of Wisconsinites’ incomes spent on public education has fallen below the national average.
Wisconsin spent $14,882 per pupil on public elementary and secondary education in the 2023 fiscal year, the most recent year for which U.S. Census Bureau data are available. This was 9.9% less than the national average of $16,526.
The Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of School System Finances collects finance information from public school systems and some charter schools, but excludes charter schools operated by private entities as well as all private schools. Revenue sources cited in the survey include federal, state, and local government funding. The data include current spending on operations, as well as for maintenance and minor building repairs. Spending on major capital projects is excluded.
Since the vast majority of funding for preK-12 education comes from state and local sources, these data offer a window into policy decisions at those levels about how education spending is prioritized. When adjusting for inflation, Wisconsin preK-12 education spending per pupil has increased slightly (2.4%) since 2002 — the earliest year for which Census Bureau figures are available. In 2002, Wisconsin spent $14,522 per pupil in inflation-adjusted, or real, dollars, compared to $14,882 in 2023. The national average per pupil real spending amount increased much more during this period (21.1%), from $13,043 in 2002 to $16,526 in 2023.
Wisconsin ranked 26th among the 50 states in the per pupil amount it spent on public schools in 2023. This was down from 25th in 2020, the latest data available at the time of the Forum’s most recent analysis of this issue. This continues a long-running decline in our state’s rank for per pupil education spending, which was 11th in 2002. Wisconsin ranked seventh among 12 Midwest states in 2023, compared to first in 2002.
When statewide education spending is measured as a share of all residents’ combined personal incomes, Wisconsin also has been on a long-term decline. In the 2000s and early 2010s, Wisconsin spent a significantly larger share of personal income on education compared to the national average. This share declined to roughly match the nation for a period prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, however, that share increased nationally but continued to decline in Wisconsin.
Observing these developments is particularly timely as state policymakers recently enacted the state’s next two-year budget, of which K-12 education is the largest spending priority for the state. It should be noted that provisions in the previous 2023-25 state budget, as well as the newly enacted 2025-27 budget, could alter this trajectory going forward.
This information is provided to Wisconsin Newspaper Association members as a service of the Wisconsin Policy Forum, the state’s leading resource for nonpartisan state and local government research and civic education. Learn more at wispolicyforum.org.
