This one example is enough to suggest the problems which arise in the study of support for schools. The sources of these funds and the equitable distribution of state school taxes constitute one of the large problems of public finance and call for careful scientific study. Such questions as the following arise and must be answered: Shall state grants be determined by the pupil enrollment, by the average attendance, by the aggregate attendance, or by the number of teachers employed?
Costs of Different Levels of Education
Turning to details of expenditure, we find a new set of problems. Perhaps the most impressive fact is that there is a wide discrepancy in every city between the average expenditures per pupil in elementary schools and high schools. Again, we may select as typical the facts for the cities referred to in an earlier table. These average figures are less striking than some which could be cited. In Los Angeles, California, the cost per pupil in the high school, at the same date as that for which the figures in Table III were compiled, was $285.67 as contrasted with the cost of $59.41 per elementary pupil.
TABLE III. COST PER PUPIL IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND HIGH SCHOOLS IN SELECTED CITIES[21]
| Elementary School | High School | |
|---|---|---|
| New York | $45.67 | $105.86 |
| Chicago | 37.58 | 85.15 |
| Philadelphia | 32.22 | 87.10 |
| St. Louis | 37.21 | 113.72 |
| Boston | 44.81 | 82.77 |
| Albany | 35.69 | 70.56 |
| Dayton | 29.85 | 63.77 |
| Des Moines | 33.66 | 51.17 |
| Grand Rapids | 40.45 | 87.36 |
| Richmond | 22.24 | 56.73 |
It requires very little consideration to explain why there is a difference between these two types of expenditures. High-school classes are often small, teachers receive higher salaries, and equipment is more expensive. It requires much more consideration to justify the difference. There are some who hold that the elementary school is being sacrificed to the high school. Indeed, there are some people so extreme in their views that they would make all high schools tuition schools. They hold that Boston is in expenditures much less open to criticism than St. Louis. In St. Louis, on the other hand, it is pointed out that a most elaborate scheme of high schools has been organized with a view to providing every high-school student in every section of the city with the broadest possible opportunities. By way of further answer to the critics of the high school, it is asserted that the community gets back in public service from the student who has taken higher courses more than such courses cost. Certain it is, as the figures in Table III show, that cities are making expenditures on a most generous scale for the maintenance of high schools; and the total amount of this expenditure is greater than the table indicates because there are large initial appropriations for school buildings which are not taken into account in these statements of current expenses.
Costs of Different Subjects of Instruction
Pursuing the matter further, we find that there are the widest discrepancies in costs due to differences in the subjects taught, to differences in the number of pupils assembled in class, and to other less conspicuous differences.
In order to bring out the differences between subjects in the same school, Professor Bobbitt has calculated the cost, per thousand student hours, of instruction in twenty-five medium-sized high schools, and presents in Table IV the median[22] cost of each subject.
TABLE IV. COST, PER THOUSAND STUDENT HOURS, OF INSTRUCTION IN HIGH SCHOOLS IN THE VARIOUS SUBJECTS OF THE CURRICULUM[23]