The Cost of Education – A Synthetic Approach

There is perennial interest in the quality of education relative to its cost. For example, several Supreme Courts have ruled that funding education on the basis of a real property tax is unconstitutional because it makes the quality of a child's education dependent upon the wealth of his parents and neighbors. California, Michigan, Texas, and other states have focused on this problem, though the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Texas decision (Rodriquez et. al. vs. San Antonio). These cases illustrate continuing interest in educational quality and cost. At the school level, the relation between quality and cost is also well known. Most, if not all, school administrators continually face the problem of providing education with rapidly increasing costs. In Nevada, for example, education costs have been increasing at a rate of 13.5 percent per year.