As college attainment expanded in the U.S., the fraction of public funds allocated to selective colleges and universities declined. Does this make sense from an efficiency standpoint, given that the majority of college entrants face the highest financial returns at selective colleges? Should the...

The upcoming Spending Review will involve some very difficult decisions on public service spending, with virtually no headroom against the government's fiscal rules. The government has set out plans for overall departmental spending to grow by about 1.2% per year in real terms between 2025-26...

Educational outcomes in Belgium are comparable to peers but achieved at a higher cost. The public wage bill for education is higher than in peers, reflecting smaller student-to-teacher ratios and less teaching time. Yet, Belgium experiences teacher shortages. Reforms should aim at increasing the...

Digital technologies are increasingly important for delivering inclusive, resilient, and high-quality education, yet financing their effective deployment remains a key constraint in many low- and middle-income countries). This paper examines the scale of investment needed to achieve universal...

At just under £8 billion, spending on schools and childcare is the second-largest area of public service spending in Scotland, behind spending on health. While councils rather than the Scottish Government itself determine how much to spend on schools, they do so in the context of a funding and...

To achieve their national and international education goals, many countries need to invest more and better in their education systems. During the last decade, total education spending by governments, households, and donors globally has increased steadily, but this has not led to significant...

This study examines how national public funding and macroeconomic conditions affect higher education performance, measured by graduation rates. A panel dataset covering 2013-2022 and ten Lithuanian public universities integrates economic, financial, and institutional variables. Lithuania applies...

This study explores the relevance of education in reducing poverty in Egypt's rural and urban areas.The study applies the logistic model to Analyse Household Income Expenditure survey data.The results indicate that spending on education in urban regions is higher than in rural areas. Second, the...

Using the Timor-Leste Survey of Living Standards, we show that the household education spending on girls was higher than for boys in the period following independence. This pattern contrasts with that in the neighboring and politically interrelated country of Indonesia. We explore how religious...

Economic growth has been a fundamental policy objective for countries throughout history. It sig-nifies an enhancement in a country's well-being and income levels. Education also plays a significant role in economic development and welfare improvement. This study aims to empirically examine and...

The welfare effects of government redistributive policy have been subject to considerable debate for decades. Against this background, this study explores the effect of government social spending on an empirically constructed measure of well-being in a panel of 16 upper middle-income countries...

This in-depth analysis considers different European Union (EU) programmes that support access to quality education in Sub-Saharan Africa, from the perspectives of both development cooperation and humanitarian aid. It investigates how these programmes currently meet the needs of developing...

This in-depth analysis considers different European Union (EU) programmes that support access to quality education in Sub-Saharan Africa, from the perspectives of both development cooperation and humanitarian aid. It investigates how these programmes currently meet the needs of developing...

This paper measures the efficiency of public spending in the education and health sectors using Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). It covers all EU Member States from 2000 to 2022. The model uses panel data and accounts for country-specific factors such as...

This study aims to examine the relationship between government spending and economic development in Kenya, given the lack of consensus on the topic globally. While there is an agreement that some level of government expenditure is necessary for economic development, the specific areas of...

Thirty-two years ago, the First Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM I) established a trifocalized Philippine Educational and Training System (PETS) to ramp up achievement of the country's educational and training goals. EDCOM I sought to raise the system's performance by transforming...

This study evaluates the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES), a key component of the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act (Republic Act No. 10931), which aims to provide financial support to underprivileged Filipino students in higher education. Employing a mixedmethods approach, the...

This paper studies households' expenditure on the education of children in China's cities to assess how internal migrant families' investment in the human capital of their offspring differs from that of local urban families. The private education-related expenditure reflects both households'...

The affordability of public higher education and, by extension, public higher education funding, is an important concern to prospective students and their parents as well as to policymakers. Our study examines the allocation of constant dollar per-student state appropriations across four-year or...

In this report, we analyse the financial health and challenges facing colleges in England. This covers all further education colleges, including sixth form colleges. There are currently 218 colleges in England, which offer a wide range of academic and vocational programmes to both young people...

The special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system in England has faced unprecedented pressure over the past decade, and without substantial reform it will likely become unmanageable for local authorities over the coming years. Fundamentally, this is due to the rocketing number of...

The Scottish Government's Budget for 2024-25 takes place at a time of particular uncertainty about the future funding environment. UK government spending plans both for the coming year and for later years seem likely to be topped up, but when and by how much is unclear. The current UK government...

The debate around funding student loans has largely focused on what share of student loans will be repaid, and what share of the cost will need to be picked up by the taxpayer. Much less attention has been paid to the government cost of financing student loans that do get repaid. In this report,...

In 2015, Michigan increased it Career and Technical Education (CTE) funding and changed its funding formula to reimburse programsbased student progression through program curricula. Although this change nearly doubled program completion rates, student enrollment and persistence were unaffected;...