American Public Schools Lost 1.4 Million Students Since COVID. Their Budgets Grew by 34 Percent Anyway.

Since 2019, public school enrollment has fallen by 2.84 percent nationwide, an exodus of roughly 1.4 million. K-12 students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Yet the amount spent on public schools nationwide grew by 34 percent from 2019 to 2024, according to NCES data.

Much of that is thanks to the nearly $190 billion Congress provided to state and local governments through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER), in three separate batches from March 2020 to March 2021. Now that the ESSER funds are largely spent, school districts are grappling with staffing decisions made during a spending boom that seems unlikely to be repeated anytime soon.

In its 2026 American School District Panel (ASDP) survey of public school officials across the country, research organization RAND found that “54 percent of district leaders” were worried about a budget shortfall, even though educational spending has increased across all levels of government, even after adjusting for inflation. On average, the U.S. spends about $17,644 per student, according to NCES. It’s an increase of 34 percent from the NCES’ 2019 estimate of $13,187.

Still, more money hasn’t led to better student outcomes. At each grade level and across subject areas, there’s a decline in current achievement when compared to student benchmarks from 2019. In 2024, the most recent data available, only 60 percent of fourth graders and 67 percent of eighth graders were reading at or above a basic level, the lowest performance tier used by the National Center for Education Statistics. 

It doesn’t get better as students age, with just 68 percent of high school seniors reading at or above a basic level. 

The middling level of achievement isn’t new, so why does spending continue to climb? The answer lies in state and local budgets, which provide over 80 percent of funding for public schools.

During COVID, several school districts nationwide implemented “hold harmless” budget provisions that guaranteed schools would receive as much funding as the previous year, regardless of enrollment rates. Post-pandemic, about 60 percent of states use some version of a hold-harmless provision for school funding, according to the education nonprofit EdChoice.

In turn, this has led to an imbalance between where students learn and where taxpayer money is spent.

Thanks to its hold-harmless provision, New York City will spend $290 million in 2027 to prevent budget cuts at public schools with declining enrollment, more than double what the city spent “prior to the beginning” of the 2025–26 school year, according to Chalkbeat. In Pennsylvania, student enrollment at public schools is down 1.8 percent since 2019, yet the state has increased the number of support staff hired by 2.7 percent over the same period. Spending on public education in the commonwealth is up year over year, and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s latest budget represents a “nearly 35 percent increase” compared to previous years.

These budgeting stopgaps might be good for politicians, but they’ve done nothing to assuage parents, who continue to enroll their children elsewhere. Charter schools, meanwhile, have seen enrollment increase by about 15 percent, while enrollment at independent schools has remained relatively steady over the same period.

It also hasn’t quelled administrators’ concern about cuts, with some deciding to trim salaries, wages, and employee benefit accounts, which account for 76.8 percent of elementary and secondary school budgets. Last week, Chicago public schools announced it would have to lay off “760 teachers, 801 teacher aides and 162 central office and citywide staff” to deal with its $732 million budget deficit, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

With little link between funding and student achievement, it’s fair to ask why taxpayers are footing the bill for public education systems that are more of a burden than a boon.