Quality Concerns Remain as States Invest More Than Ever in Preschool Programs

“More four-year-olds are enrolled in state-funded preschools than ever before, but the quality and availability of preschool programs have experts concerned about creating a system of haves and have-nots. “If providing high-quality preschool education to all 3- and 4-year-olds were a race, some states are nearing the finish line, others have stumbled and fallen behind, and a few have yet to leave the starting line,” an annual report from the National Institute of Early Education Research states. The report , titled “State of Preschool: 2025 Yearbook,” breaks down the annual spending, quality and enrollment numbers across early childhood education programs in the U.S. The latest found states hit an all-time high for both spending and enrollment, but the quality of the programs remains a concern. “We’re trying to make sure states are also thinking about quality,” Allison Friedman-Krauss, an associate research professor at NIEER, says. “Right now, it’s more about access. And we don't want them to forget about quality.” More Funding – But Not Always More Quality The report found funding peaked at nearly $14.4 billion, though that was largely driven by a handful of states: $4.1 billion in California alone, along with $1.2 billion in New Jersey and $1 billion in New York. Those three states accounted for nearly half (45 percent) of all state pre-K spending. More than two dozen states also increased their preschool spending, which can go toward things like improving teacher-to-student rations and improving teacher compensation, the latter which has long been a concern. While spending once again increased, it did so at a slower rate than in past years. Adjusted for inflation, each state spent an average of $45 more per child than the 2023-2024 year. However, last year’s increase in spending was 16 times as large. New Jersey, Oregon and the District of Columbia gave more than $15,000 in state funding per child enrolled in preschool. Six other states (California, Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, New Mexico, and Washington) spent more than $10,000 per child enrolled in pre-K. Twenty eight states overall spent more funding per child, adjusted for inflation, than past years. Seventeen states spent less on preschool in 2024-2025 than they did in 2023-2024, when adjusted for inflation. The researchers pointed to the decline in part because of an overall state deficit, as well as a declining enrollment across many states, often which goes hand-in-hand with a boost in early childhood education budgets. However, Steve Barnett, director of NIEER, says it’s all about priorities. He pointed toward New Jersey, which had a budget deficit but invested an additional $100 million into expanding preschool programs for all. “That’s a conscious decision to say we’re going to spend less,” he says. “And you have to ask if the declining enrollment – even if not intentional – is a way to reduce spending [in the sector]. As opposed to, ‘Maybe we should work on getting parents to enroll their kid.’” The boost in funding did not always correlate to better early childhood education programs. Only six states met all of NIEER’s 10 quality standards benchmarks , which includes class size of 20 students or fewer, teachers having bachelor’s degrees and a classroom ratio of at least one staff member for every 10 students. Source: NIEER Barnett says for states looking to up their quality, focusing on class size and teacher pay is important and the other benchmarks can more easily fall into place. “[Those] are most of the money; if you equally address those, the others are much easier to pay for later,” he says. “It does take time. You can’t just wave a magic wand and have classroom size and teachers’ pay magically fixed.” Friedman-Krauss pointed to Alabama and Georgia as examples of slowly, but surely, increasing quality. The latter hit all 10 quality benchmarks this year, after previously hitting eight metrics in the 2023-2024 year. Its investment of $97.6 million helped lower classroom size from 22 to 20, and also increased teacher pay so it was on par with K-12 teachers. “We make a big deal of it because it’s serving most of the 4-year-old [children] and hitting all the benchmarks,” Barnett says. “It’s a state that lost them and came back even stronger; that’s a good sign.” Lion’s Share of Enrollment Only in a Few States Enrollment, similarly to funding, reached an all-time high with 1.8 million children during the 2024-2025 school year. Roughly half of that comes from four states: California, Texas, New York and Florida. A dozen states had more than half of their four-year-olds in state-funded preschool programs, with the District of Columbia topping the list: 94 percent of four-year-olds were enrolled in their state programs. California was buoyed in part due by its universal pre-K promise . Source: NIEER However, twenty states enrolled fewer preschoolers in 2024-2025 than the prior year. While some could point to the dip due to the declining birth rate , when adjusted by population percentage, 21 states saw a dip. Six states (Arizona, Florida, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin) decreased enrollment by more than 1,000 children. Three-year-old students made up only 9 percent enrollment across the nation, up from 5 percent a decade earlier. Illinois and New Jersey are both focusing on expanding for three-year-olds, Friedman-Krauss says, though her and Barnett expects a slow mass adoption of three-year-olds in state-funded programs. “I think there will be more attention paid to that group – how much more, that’s the hard part,” Barnett says. “9 percent is better than when we started, but it’s very lumpy. It’s still 0 percent in lots of places.”

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