Schools in rural communities spend more per student than non-rural schools

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Rural communities face several challenges in providing educational services that suburban and urban areas do not. According to Do Schools in Rural and Non-rural Districts Allocate Resources Differently? An Analysis of Spending and Staffing Patterns in the West Region States, districts in rural communities spent more per student, hired more staff per 100 students, and spent more on overhead than did non-rural districts.

The report describes and analyzes 2005/06 school district data to understand how district spending and staffing patterns varied with three characteristics associated with rural areas—district enrollment, student population density, and drive time to the nearest urban area—and whether the relationship between these resource allocation patterns and regional characteristics differed across the study states.

The report’s main findings include the following:

• As expected, districts in rural and nonrural locales differed in enrollment, student population density, and average drive time to the nearest urban area. Districts in rural-remote and rural-distant locales had substantially lower enrollments and student population densities than did districts in other locale subcategories.

• Districts in rural locales spent more per student, hired more staff (especially teachers) per 100 students, and spent more on overhead than did districts in nonrural areas.

• Regional characteristics (district enrollment, student population density, and drive time) were more strongly related to resource allocation than were other cost factors studied (student needs and geographic differences in labor costs). Among these, district enrollment was the factor most strongly associated with spending and staffing patterns.

These findings may be useful to policymakers as they develop resource distribution formulas and policies.