Have you ever looked around in a classroom and wondered how the school pays for the things we have? How are all these seats and chairs paid for? How do we have power, and how does the school afford to feed us? The money our schools receive comes from the federal government and other sources like state governments, local taxes, and sometimes private donations. It budgets on many things but most of the spending goes to teachers and support staff salaries. So the value of the NYC public school system relies heavily on teachers rather than the objects we see in and out of a classroom.

Most of the funding comes from the state and federal government and it consists of many different parts, with the overall budget being used for a variety of things. The budget for New York City Public schools is approximately $40,000,000,000 (40 billion dollars) and it is used for hundreds of schools in New York City. The 40 billion dollars come from a variety of sources, 23 billion dollars comes from New York State, 15 billion dollars comes from New York City, 2.2 billion dollars comes from federal funding, and 200 million dollars comes from other anonymous sources.

The New York City Department of Education spends the 40B dollars in various ways, starting by using 15.6 billion dollars on K-12 schools and instructional programs.;  4.9 billion dollars on school operations; 300 million dollars on paying superintendents and field offices; 8.1 billion dollars on employee benefits and pensions; 3.5 billion dollars on the debt payments that  the DOE needs to pay; 3.2 billion dollars on state mandated payments to charter schools; 2 billion dollars on  

 non-public and contract schools, per Special Education mandate. Only a small portion goes the everyday items that you see in the school building.

Since the pandemic, the enrollment of students in New York City public schools has decreased. Before the pandemic, over 1 million students were enrolled into the public school, but in 2020, that number dropped to 900,000. Over the course of a few years, the enrollment rate has slowly increased, reaching approximately 915,000 students as of 2025.

The projected number of public school student enrollment is decreasing year by year, and is planned to be approximately 750,000 or lower by 2030. This is a serious deal because if there are less students enrolling into public schools, and schools will have less budget to use on students, staff, and schools necessities.