The numbers coming out of New York City’s public school system are raising increasingly serious questions about whether taxpayers are getting anything close to an acceptable return on investment.
Despite pouring a record-shattering $43 billion into public education, New York City continues spending more per student than any other major school district in America — all while enrollment collapses and academic performance remains stubbornly mediocre.
The city now spends roughly $44,000 per student, a figure education analysts and fiscal watchdogs say is becoming impossible to justify given the results.
“Despite the City spending $44,000 per student, too many of its schools are delivering middling results, and some parents are increasingly choosing charters over traditional public schools,” said Andrew Rein, executive director of the Citizens Budget Commission.
And the financial pressure may soon intensify even further.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani is currently finalizing his first city budget while simultaneously dealing with a shrinking student population, aging infrastructure costs, ballooning special education expenses, and a controversial state-imposed class size mandate backed heavily by teachers unions.
Critics say the math simply no longer works.
Over the last decade, the city has lost nearly 158,000 public school students. Yet instead of downsizing operations accordingly, New York somehow added 39 more schools during the same period.
The system now contains hundreds of severely underutilized buildings.
According to city data, 249 schools — roughly 15% of the system — operate below half capacity. Nearly half of all public schools now enroll fewer than 400 students, while 134 schools serve fewer than 150 students total.
And projections show the decline is far from over.
A recent report from the City School Construction Authority forecasts another 153,000-student decline by the 2034-35 school year, dropping enrollment to roughly 721,000 students.
“The New York City Department of Education budget keeps going up while the number of students they’re educating continues to decline,” said Manhattan Institute education researcher Daniela Souza. “School closings and mergers are inevitable.”
Yet political realities continue making those adjustments extraordinarily difficult.
State Democrats led by Gov. Kathy Hochul imposed a sweeping class size reduction mandate that critics argue forces the city to hire more teachers and preserve more classroom space even as student populations shrink.
“The law is unworkable. It’s impossible to implement,” Souza said.
Meanwhile, the academic results hardly reflect a school system consuming this level of taxpayer money.
According to the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress — commonly known as the Nation’s Report Card — only one-third of New York City fourth graders scored proficient in math, while just 28% were proficient in reading.
By eighth grade, proficiency rates dropped even lower: 23% in math and 29% in reading.
At the same time, more parents are abandoning traditional public schools altogether.
Charter schools now educate roughly 150,500 students across New York City, accounting for nearly one in every six students citywide. In many cases, charter students outperform nearby Department of Education schools on standardized state exams.
Much of the spending growth is being driven by labor costs and exploding special education expenses.
According to Citizens Budget Commission figures, the city now spends:
• $13 billion on salaries
• $8.1 billion on pensions, fringe benefits, and debt service
• $3.5 billion on charter school payments
• $3.1 billion on early childhood programs
• $1.5 billion on special education legal disputes and private placements
Transportation costs alone have jumped from $1.4 billion in 2019 to $1.9 billion today.
Facilities and maintenance spending climbed from $1 billion to $1.3 billion over the same period.
One of the fastest-growing expenses involves “due process” special education cases, where parents seek private school placements for children whose needs they believe are not being met inside public schools.
City Comptroller Mark Levine warned those costs have exploded from $500 million in 2019 to approximately $1.5 billion today.
Despite mounting criticism, the Department of Education insists it remains committed to balancing fiscal responsibility with student needs.
“There is no better investment than one in our children,” DOE spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said in a statement.
Brownstein acknowledged enrollment declines tied to broader demographic trends but defended ongoing efforts to comply with state class size mandates while seeking savings where possible.
