Education

In nearly all states, public school funding exceeds private school tuition

September 26, 2025

Ray Carter

According to stereotype, public schools are “underfunded” with limited amenities in crumbling buildings, while private schools enjoy lavish per-pupil tuition and opulent facilities on sprawling campuses.

But public data shows the opposite scenario is far more common. On average, public schools in nearly every state have per-pupil revenue that exceeds the average tuition at private schools in the same state, in many instances by huge amounts.

Ben Scafidi, a professor of economics and director of the Education Economics Center at Kennesaw State University, whose research has included a focus on the growth of administrative spending in public schools, said that data is “not surprising.”

“What public school lobbyists often do is compare public school spending to the tuition level at some well-known and very expensive private school in a big city,” Scafidi said. “However, the tuition at one of the most expensive private schools in a given state is not representative of tuition levels across all private schools. Private schools in rural areas and faith-based private schools often have extremely low tuition levels.”

To develop a comparison of public-school per-pupil revenue and private school tuition, the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs relied on data from a report released in April, “Rankings of the States 2024 and Estimates of School Statistics 2025,” by the National Education Association, which included state-level data on public-school revenue receipts per student in the 2023-2024 school year, the most recent available.

Information compiled by Private School Review provided the average private-school tuition in each state for the current, 2025-2026 school year.

Those data sets show that public-school revenue is greater than the average private-school tuition in every state except Utah, where private school tuition is $613 higher than public schools’ per-pupil revenue, on average.

The NEA report found that Oklahoma public schools had $14,066 in revenue receipts per student in the 2023-2024 school year when calculated based on average daily attendance.

That’s 24-percent greater than the current average private-school tuition rate in Oklahoma.

Private School Review shows that the average private school tuition in Oklahoma is $11,325 per year for the 2025-26 school year.

However, that average is inflated due to 13 private elementary schools (out of 69 reviewed by the site) and 11 (of 46) private high schools that charge tuition of $15,000 per child or more. Notably, several of those schools serve higher-cost student groups, such as children with special needs or at-risk youth.

Of the 69 private elementary schools and 46 private high schools in Oklahoma covered by Private School Review, 27 elementary schools and 13 high schools charge tuition of less than $7,500 per child.

Recent data released by the Oklahoma Tax Commission regarding the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program, which provides refundable tax credits to help families pay for private-school tuition, shows the average credit for low-income and middle-class families has been less than the maximum available. That again indicates tuition at many Oklahoma private schools is less than $7,500.

Furthermore, a recent report found many private schools across the nation charge tuition that is roughly one-third the per-pupil revenue provided to Oklahoma public schools.

A report from the National Center for Research of Education Access and Choice, authored by Douglas Harris and Gabriel Olivier of Tulane University, noted that the tuition figure and school size that arose the most often in their review of private schools nationwide was a “tuition of only $5,000 annually and a school size of 30 students.”

“Many private schools evidently operate ‘under the radar’ with very few students in church basements, for example,” Harris and Olivier wrote. “This means the new voucher programs will increase access for a larger number of families than might otherwise have been assumed and will likely increase enrollment in smaller and cheaper schools.”

In some cases, the gap between a state’s public schools and private schools is enormous.

For example, the average private-school tuition in New York was $22,412. But the per-pupil revenue in New York public schools was $40,963.

In New Jersey, private-school tuition averaged $18,813, but public schools received $30,924 per pupil.

In Illinois, private-school tuition averaged $12,697, a fraction of the $29,550 in per-pupil revenue provided to public schools in that state.

In multiple states, public-school funding was often $8,000 to $9,000 more per student than average private-school tuition.

In Oregon, South Carolina, Wyoming, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Iowa, Louisiana, New Mexico, Nebraska, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Alaska, the average tuition at private schools was about half the per-pupil revenue provided public schools, and in several cases less than half.

The funding provided to public schools has allowed districts across Oklahoma and the nation to build lavish facilities rarely seen on most private school campuses, such as sprawling athletic facilities and professional-level performing-arts centers.

For instance, in 2022, the Bixby school district in Oklahoma spent $110 million on several projects, including a high school track building that included an indoor practice room with two track lanes, a high school athletics building that included 19,000 square feet of new additions and 10,000 square feet of renovations, and a gymnasium dedicated to ninth graders.

In 2015, Learning by Design magazine highlighted the High School Performing Arts and Athletic Center in the Deer Creek district in Oklahoma, calling it the “crown jewel of the Deer Creek High School campus.” The project included a 2,000-seat gymnasium and a 1,200-seat auditorium. Learning by Design reported that Deer Creeks’ auditorium “can accommodate visiting production companies with its advanced theatrical lighting, professional quality catwalks and stage rigging,” and noted the facility included an orchestra pit, makeup and changing rooms and costume storage.

On May 13, the Springfield News-Leader reported on what it called the “Taj Mahal of high school indoor athletic facilities” in the Nixa school district in Missouri.

“If we’re going to do it in Nixa, Missouri, it’s, ‘Let’s do it five-star,” Nixa football coach John Perry told the News-Leader.

On Aug. 6, Prep Network reported on the grand opening of an “opulent,” $62 million football stadium at Buford High School in Georgia, calling it “the most expensive high school football venue in Georgia history.”

In some cases, public schools have gone even further.

In Florida, one news report noted the school district in Miami-Dade County had opened a new seven-story building that housed a middle school on the third through seventh floors, and included apartments for teachers on the first and second floors.

In August 2024, Infrastructure USA reported, “School district construction throughout the U.S. is rampant currently, and it promises to be the same in 2025.”

However, while public schools can often outspend private schools, particularly on facilities, spending data indicates Oklahoma public schools devote a surprisingly limited amount of funds to instructional uses.

According to information compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics report for the 2022-2023 school year, only 53.3 percent of Oklahoma school funding went to instruction, on average. The national average was 58.8 percent. Only one state – Colorado – spent a lower share on instruction.

Furthermore, instructional spending represents less than 50 percent of expenses at roughly 150 of Oklahoma’s more than 500 school districts.

Thus, despite public schools having often-lavish physical facilities and significantly more funding per pupil than private schools on average, data indicates that private schools typically outperform public schools when it comes to students’ academic outcomes, not just in Oklahoma, but nationwide.

The differences in academic outcomes, as well as the fact that many parents prefer the climate in private schools, has fueled growing demand for school-choice programs across the nation that allow parents to use tax funds to pay for private-school tuition.

A recent poll, commissioned by the American Federation for Children, showed that parents of school-age children prefer legislative candidates who support school choice over opponents by a margin of about two-to-one.

Amid those debates, school-choice opponents continue to point to the most expensive private schools in a state to argue that choice programs cannot make private-school affordable for most middle-class families.

But Scafidi reiterated that tactic involves a willful aversion to the reality of typical private-school costs.

While “public school lobbyists will typically cherry-pick the tuition from a single private school in a rural area or a single faith-based private school and claim that it is representative of private school tuition,” Scafidi called that argument “silly.”

“Policy analysts and the media should look at average tuition levels,” Scafidi said, “and compare them to average public school revenues per student, for a sensible, apples-to-apples, comparison.”