(07-03-2023 10:09 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(07-03-2023 09:41 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  I'm almost positive the per pupil spend is greater in rural areas compared to urban. But even so, there is still a struggle to provide school services in some regions because of how sparsely populated the region is.

I don't have a source with the granularity you would need, but comparison by states could be a useful proxy.

https://www.census.gov/library/visualiza...nding.html

Most expensive region is the most urban dense Northeast. Second cheapest is the more rural and sparsely populated west (although Alaska, Wyoming, and Hawaii at the top would suggest some validity to your comment). Cheapest is the similarly rural Southeast, which would be even cheaper if it did not include DC.

You'd have to look at spending within each state - as comparing state to state doesn't control for the fact that some states spend more on public education than others, in totality.

For example, NY leads the pack at $24k per pupil - but are city kids at $22k while rural are at $28k? Or vice versa.

After a quick google search, DOE says that (as of 2017) median per pupil spending was highest in rural areas in almost every region (oddly, though, it shows suburbs with the highest spend across the US).

https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2020/2020303.pdf