Strategic Decision-Making Capacity: Education
In an innovation-based economy, the most important investment is education. Quality primary and secondary education enables children to apply and combine existing knowledge in new ways to solve real world problems. It also prepares them to succeed in the post-secondary work needed to secure a decent pay and career.
Compared to its peers, the Kansas City area is investing more than average. In fact, the region's public school districts rank second in adjusted instructional expenditures per student (adjusted for the higher costs associated with educating disadvantaged children).
Need-Adjusted Instructional Spending, 2004
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For the chart above, each metro's data was calculated as the average of its individual public school districts. According to S&P, economically disadvantaged students cost 1.35 times as much to educate, on average, as the non-disadvantaged student. Special education students cost 2.1 times as much, and English language learners cost 1.2 times as much.These figures are multiplied times each district's student distribution to produce a “need-adjusted enrollment” figure by district.
This provides a fairer estimate of the resource demands placed on the district — the kind of students in addition to the number of students. The figures in the chart are calculated as the weighted average over all school districts in a metropolitan area of total instructional expenditures, with need-adjusted enrollment providing the weights.
Higher Education
In addition to primary and secondary education, high-quality higher education has become increasingly important to economic competitiveness. Good colleges and universities produce the creative problem solvers needed by any business, as well as the specialized expertise to succeed in a technological global economy.
Moreover, highly motivated and energetic students working with top-notch professors on cutting-edge research create a climate of entrepreneurship very attractive to venture capital.
Those regions that sow the largest numbers of such entrepreneurs are most likely to reap at least a few highly successful innovative businesses. The size of the effort matters and it is useful to look at the level of higher educational spending as well as the per capita amounts.
Higher Education Appropriations by State, 2004
(in thousands of dollars)
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Higher Education in Kansas City” 2005, pp. 82-83
In the Greater Kansas City region (and here we are using the term “Greater” to mean a region extending from Manhattan, Kan., to Columbia, Mo.) education is largely a function of the states.
Examining total state appropriations for higher education finds Kansas and Missouri in the middle of the pack of states to which the region's peer metros belong, about one-third lower than Indiana and Minnesota but about one-third higher than Nebraska, Utah and Colorado. However, Kansas and Missouri spend less than one-fifth what Texas does. To a certain extent this is to be expected, as Texas is much larger than either Missouri or Kansas. But the difference in size does not explain the whole story.
Examining spending on higher education by state on a per capita basis reveals that Kansas is among the leaders (ranked second from the top) while Missouri lags behind. Not only is Missouri ranked second from the bottom among its peers, its per capita funding of colleges and universities is one-half that Kansas.
Per Capita Higher Education Appropriations by State, 2004
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for Higher Education in Kansas City” 2005, pp. 82-83
The Kansas City region is working hard to change its innovative capacity. Particularly noteworthy are the multi-billion dollar endowment of the Stowers Institute to conduct leading-edge medical research; the increased level of funding for life science by the state of Kansas; and the efforts to institutionalize a higher level of life science research through the Kansas City Area Life Science Institute.
KCALSI stakeholders have, as a group, increased their level of outside funding over the last six years nearly three times, totaling $285 million in 2005.
Funding For Life Science Research, 1999-2005
Kansas City Area Life Science Institute Stakeholders
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*Stakeholders represented in this graph include Children's Mercy Hospital, Kansas City University of Medicine and BioSciences, Midwest Research Institute, Saint Luke's Hospital of Kansas City, the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, the University of Kansas, KU Medical Center, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Kansas State University and the University of Missouri-Columbia were recently added as stakeholders. If included, the 2005 figure would increase to $533 million.
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