This report highlights significant investments made by both Republican and Democratic policymakers in state-funded pre-k programs for the fourth year in a row. In the 2015-16 budget year, 32 states and the District of Columbia raised funding levels of pre-k programs. This increased support for preschool funding came from both sides of the…

The tuition increase at the University of Florida--one of 11 public universities in Florida to win the approval of the state's Board of Governors to tack a "tuition differential" of 7 percent onto an 8 percent increase already approved by the state legislature--comes in response to an unprecedented reduction of some $340 million in state…

Fees at California's public colleges and universities have increased in the past two decades, but are still lower than fees at comparable institutions in other states. Fees for full-time undergraduate students at the University of California were $8,027 in 2008-09 and fees at California State University were $3,849. Fees are likely to rise for the…

This report contains and analyzes statistical information about the financing of California postsecondary education from the 1965-66 fiscal year through 2010-11. CPEC (California Postsecondary Education Commission) compiles, analyzes, and disseminates this information to provide policymakers with comprehensive and comparable financial data that…

How do colleges and universities spend their money? To most, it's a black box. The public looks at tuitions, states look at appropriations, trustees look at the endowment, and department managers look at their budgets. How colleges actually spend their money is barely understood by the general public and even many policy makers. In the current…

Reply to an article printed in the April issue. (IRT)

This paper provides a guide to statistically based methods for estimating the extra costs of educating disadvantaged students, shows how these methods are related, and compares state aid programs that account for these costs in different ways. We show how pupil weights, which are included in many state aid programs, can be estimated from an…

Outlines one approach for assessing and measuring the differences in the costs of education services and reports the results of an application of this approach to data for the state of California. (Author/IRT)

Suggests that Florida's finance formula to relieve interdistrict cost-of-living differences fails to equalize school district attractiveness. (DW)

This report is divided into four sections. Section 1 is a short discussion of the economic theory underlying the construction of the cost of education index and an example of how the index is calculated. Also presented are descriptions of the factors included in the statistical analysis to control for quality, quantity, and cost differences and…

Except under specific conditions, adjusting state school finance plans to compensate for differences in the salaries paid to teachers has the potential for creating even greater inequities rather than for reducing existing inequities. (Author/IRT)

Discusses problems in establishing teacher cost indices on which to base adjustments in state educational aid. Presents 1973-1980 data on differentials in teacher salaries and revenue potentials among Florida school districts to show that salary differences between districts can change rapidly. (RW)

These two notes offer a couple of refinements to existing equalization plans--one deals with cost indexes, the other with fiscal incentive for dollar equalization. (Author/IRT)

Analyzes the use of different measures of sparsity of pupil population and discusses the relationship of pupil population density to the equality of educational programs. Describes in detail development of an index used in Florida to measure the extra cost of providing equal educational opportunity in sparsely settled school districts. (JG)