North Carolina is the #1 state for business in America, yet ranks 50th in what it spends per student, grossly underinvesting in the classrooms that build its workforce.
NC ranks 50th in the nation in what it spends per student. That gap shows up in classrooms, in the teacher pipeline, and eventually in the workforce businesses hire from.
North Carolina spends less per student than Mississippi, Virginia, South Carolina, and the national average. Scaled across NC's students, those per-pupil gaps run into the billions.
| State | Per-Pupil Spend | Gap vs. NC | $ Behind Peer States* |
|---|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | $12,193 | — | — |
| Mississippi | $13,559 | +$1,366 | $2.1B |
| Virginia | $15,815 | +$3,622 | $5.5B |
| South Carolina | $17,698 | +$5,505 | $8.4B |
| National Average | $17,853 | +$5,660 | $8.7B |
Every neighbor outspends NC per student. *$ Behind scales each per-pupil gap to NC's ~1.53 million students (illustrative, not a line-item total). Source: Education Law Center, Making the Grade 2025 (2022–23).
Two-thirds of NC jobs require a degree or credential beyond high school, but only 31% of NC 9th graders earn one within six years of high school. Businesses cannot hire what schools are not producing.
Students are graduating, but they are not graduating workforce-ready. On the 2024 NAEP, only 31% of NC eighth-graders were proficient in math and 27% in reading, below the national average.
Sources: myFutureNC 2026 · NAEP 2024
Tax cuts and private-school vouchers are pulling billions out of the same general fund that pays for public schools, and more is on the November ballot.
in revenue vanishes for every 1% cut to NC's individual income tax, plus $800M for every 1% reduction in the corporate rate, now phasing to 0% by 2030.
since 2023, now with no income limit. 87% of new recipients never attended public school. It's enough to raise every NC teacher to the national average for a year.
(a) A 3.5% income-tax cap, locking in about $2 billion a year in cuts to the general fund. (b) Limits on local property taxes, capping what county commissioners can give schools when the state won't. WUNC / NC General Assembly, 2026