According to an Annual Survey of School System Finances conducted by the Census and the National Center for Education Statistics, Alaska is among the states that receives the most federal aid for education funding.
According to the Census Bureau, 13.3% of funding for public elementary and secondary schools came from the federal government in the 2021-22 school year. That’s a huge increase in federal spending compared to just 7.7% in 2018-19, representing the massive infusion of federal aid schools received for post-pandemic school recovery.
Alaska was among the states most dependent on federal aid in the 2021-22 school year, with federal sources accounting for 20.6% of its education funding.
Funding came not just from the Department of Education, but also programs run by other federal agencies such as Head Start (funded by Health and Human Services) and the national school lunch program (funded by the Department of Agriculture).
Out of $119 billion in federal funding for education in 2021-22, the most notable expenditures were $28.6 billion for child nutrition programs, $14.8 billion for Title I schools to support low-income children, and $12.5 billion for special education. Forty-eight percent of the funds that year went to various state-distributed grants to support schools — again a much higher share than pre-pandemic, when only 18% of federal education dollars went to such grants.
President Trump has promised to close the federal Education Department and give more power back to the states, but he has also threatened to flex federal muscles by demanding that schools promote a more patriotic education and end diversity efforts. His administration has slashed $900 million in research-related contracts from the Education Department already, among other cuts, and laid off staff members. On Feb. 14 it sent out a memo giving schools a two-week deadline to halt any practice related to diversity, equity and inclusion, or else risk losing federal funding.
There are many legal hurdles that would prevent Trump from fulfilling such promises. While some of the Education Department’s budget is discretionary, most spending priorities are mandated by law. Congressional action would be required to close the entire department or to cut funding for programs such as Title I, which supports low-income schools, or IDEA, which supports special education students. Removing an individual school’s federal funding is a long and arduous process and no school has faced a serious threat of losing that money in decades.
