Have States Disproportionately Cut Education Budgets During ARRA? Early Findings

January 2010
Marguerite Roza, Susan Funk

Download Full Report (PDF: 869 K)

At the time of enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), state revenue gaps were posing a threat to state education spending. In February 2009, ARRA provided some $100 billion in federal education funds, including the $54 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) intended to stabilize state budgets and avert cuts to education. Many questions have been raised as to how the infusion of new funds will ultimately affect education spending. Where some have anticipated a proportionate bump in education spending over what might have been spent absent SFSF, others expected that the SFSF monies would replace existing state education funds. This analysis reports on 23 state budget plans to explore how state education spending has changed or will change during the period that the SFSF is applied.