Countries by Adjusted savings: education expenditure (current US$)

Ranking 2021

Analysis

This metric measures current operating expenditures on education across national economies, expressed in current US dollars for the year 2021. According to the source definition, education expenditure refers to the current operating expenditures in education, including wages and salaries and excluding capital investments in buildings and equipment. This indicator is expressed in current prices, meaning no adjustment has been made to account for price changes over time. This indicator is expressed in United States dollars. Data were drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators (indicator code NY.ADJ.AEDU.CD). The dataset covers 193 countries, with 180 of 193 (93.3%) reporting data specifically for 2021 and 190 of 193 (98.4%) providing data from the last seven years. All 100% of datapoints are classified as official-quality, exceeding the 70% threshold. The dataset contains 14 extreme outliers identified at the three-standard-deviation threshold.

The top of the ranking is dominated by large, high-income economies. The United States leads at $1.047 trillion (rank 1), followed by China at $314.5 billion (rank 2) and Germany at $200.0 billion (rank 3). The United Kingdom (rank 4, $158.9 billion), France (rank 5, $146.1 billion), and Japan (rank 6, $135.9 billion) round out the top six. India (rank 7, $96.3 billion) and Brazil (rank 8, $93.1 billion) are the highest-ranked middle-income economies, reflecting large populations and correspondingly large public payrolls. Canada (rank 9, $88.4 billion) and Italy (rank 10, $82.6 billion) complete the top ten. High absolute values at the top are closely associated with large GDP, large populations, and substantial public-sector education workforces.

In the mid-ranking tier, notable placements include Venezuela (rank 24, $31.2 billion), which places above Poland (rank 25, $29.3 billion) and Israel (rank 26, $26.7 billion), and Cuba (rank 40, $13.3 billion), which ranks above Iran (rank 41, $12.0 billion). Further down, Papua New Guinea (rank 87, $1.76 billion) ranks above Iceland (rank 88, $1.75 billion) despite their significant differences in population and income level. Among the smallest economies, Tonga (rank 192, $14.5 million) and St. Kitts and Nevis (rank 193, $13.7 million) record the two lowest values. The year-over-year volatility across the dataset averages 9.8%, well within the 50% stability threshold, indicating the ranking order is broadly stable.

This metric has several important limitations. Because it uses absolute current US dollar values with no adjustment for inflation or purchasing power parity, it favors large economies and penalizes small ones regardless of their commitment to education relative to national income. Countries with large populations or high wage levels will naturally rank higher. The exclusion of capital investment in buildings and equipment means the indicator captures only recurrent operating costs, omitting infrastructure expenditure. Currency fluctuations can shift rankings year to year for countries whose education spending is denominated in non-dollar currencies. Thirteen countries in the dataset lack 2021-specific figures and rely on earlier years, and reporting practices may differ across countries, particularly for subnational or private education expenditure.

Methodology

Rankings are based on the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code NY.ADJ.AEDU.CD, for the reference year 2021. The source definition states: education expenditure refers to the current operating expenditures in education, including wages and salaries and excluding capital investments in buildings and equipment. This indicator is expressed in current prices, meaning no adjustment has been made to account for price changes over time. This indicator is expressed in United States dollars. The dataset covers 193 countries. Of these, 180 of 193 (93.3%) have data reported for 2021 specifically, and 190 of 193 (98.4%) have data from within the last seven years. All datapoints (100%) are classified as official quality, exceeding the 70% minimum threshold. The viability checks identified 14 extreme outliers at the three-standard-deviation threshold, consistent with the large absolute differences between major economies and small island states. Average year-over-year change across the dataset is 9.8%, below the 50% volatility threshold. Values range from $13,736,000.66 (St. Kitts and Nevis, rank 193) to $1,046,599,480,744.69 (United States, rank 1), a spread of over 76 million percent. Higher values are ranked better. No purchasing power parity or inflation adjustment has been applied.

Sources

• World Bank