Dive Brief:

• Public K-12 schools in the United States face a shortfall of almost $90 billion to bring their facilities up to standard, a report released this week says.
• Schools are behind by $56 billion on capital investment and $34 billion on maintenance and operations, says the 2025 State of Our Schools report, prepared by the National Council on School Facilities, the International WELL Building Institute and the 21st Century School Fund.
• School facilities “are not just walls, roofs and blacktop,” former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona says in an introduction to the report. “They are health-critical environments.”

Dive Insight:

As a building industry best practice, the report says, schools should be spending 4% of their annual budgets on capital investments and 3% on maintenance and operations, for a total of 7% of their budgets on facilities. But they’re nowhere near that, the report says. 

Capital investment for construction work and equipment outlays was $1,617 per student, on average, over the report’s study period, fiscal years 2014-23. That’s roughly half of the $3,142 the researchers say should be spent. The numbers represent an average annual shortfall of $1,526 per student and $8.44 per gross square foot. 

For maintenance and operations, schools spent, on average, $1,451 per student, about two-thirds of the $2,191 the researchers say that it should be — an average annual shortfall of $895 per student and $5.01 per gross square foot. 

“Before they turn 18, America’s children will have spent about 15,000 hours at school,” says Carmona, who served as surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, during the George W. Bush administration. “Failing school infrastructure increases the risk of long-lasting, deleterious health effects.”

At the state level, New York spends the most on maintenance and operations, $2,406 per student and $14.77 per gross square foot, while Utah spends the least, $796 per student and $5 per gross square foot. Differences in utilities and labor costs play a role in the spread, as does the condition and age of the infrastructure, the report says. 

Looking at capital outlays, Minnesota spends the most per student, $29,674, and on a gross square footage basis, $173, while Idaho spends the least, $5,188 per student and $34 per gross square foot. 

As of fiscal year 2024, the U.S. had 99,970 public schools, each averaging eight buildings, for about 800,000 buildings under management. Combined with private institutions, schools-managed facilities total some 10.6 billion in gross square footage, the report states. 

The report also notes that K-12 enrollment is dropping. For fiscal year 2023, public schools enrolled about 49.7 million students, almost 600,000 fewer than in fiscal year 2014.