Overview
- New analyses say New York City now spends about $44,000 per student within a roughly $43 billion education budget, as Mayor Zohran Mamdani finalizes his first spending plan for the school system.
- Total enrollment has fallen by about 157,900 over the past decade, yet the city operates about 1,600 schools with many underused, including roughly 249 below half capacity and 134 projected under 150 students next year.
- A Manhattan Institute brief reports very small schools average about $41,442 per pupil versus a citywide average of $23,908 and estimates the 'hold-harmless' funding rule cost $388 million this school year.
- The same brief urges closing or merging very small or persistently low-performing schools and ending hold-harmless budgeting, with projected savings of at least $108 million from consolidations and $250–$400 million annually from funding tied to actual enrollment.
- Rising obligations add pressure, with special-education due-process costs up from about $500 million in 2019 to roughly $1.5 billion, a new state class-size law prompting talk in Albany of extra time for NYC to comply, middling test results on NAEP, and charter schools now serving about 150,500 students and often outperforming nearby district schools.