Public schools across the United States are facing a financial reckoning in 2025 as federal pandemic relief funds expire and student enrollment continues to decline, according to data from the Georgetown Edunomics Lab.
The funding crisis stems largely from the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, which pumped billions of federal dollars into school districts during the Covid pandemic. As of September 2024, those funds have dried up, leaving an estimated 250,000 education jobs, worth $24 billion in labor, in jeopardy.
“We actually warned school districts in advance, be careful about this money,” said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. “Because if you take on recurring commitments, financial commitments, you’re going to really find that in 2025, we will be calling it the bloodletting.”
