Social Returns to Quantity and Quality of Schooling

The authors find high but diminishing marginal returns to investment in expenditures per pupil per year. The study suggests the desirability of increased educational quality in school districts with lower per pupil expenditures so as to equalize the returns to years and annual expenditure per student. (Necessarily, there should be optimization in the way inputs are combined as the school systems move to new output levels-consolidation being a pertinent example.) Since expenditure per student also affects years of schooling attained, a policy of improving the relative quality of school systems in poverty areas may partially offset inherited economic disadvantages.