Definition

Governments can spend public funds directly on educational institutions or use them to provide subsidies to private entities for the purpose of education; both types of outlays are included in the data on public expenditure shown in this section. Private expenditure includes all direct expenditure on educational institutions, whether partially covered by public subsidies or not.

These expenditure data are limited to outlays by educational institutions. Excluded are the costs incurred by families to purchase textbooks and materials commercially, or to pay for private tutoring for their children provided outside educational institutions. Also excluded are students' living costs and foregone earnings, which can account for a significant proportion of the costs of education for students at the tertiary level.

For more statistics on economic, environmental and social issues visit online the OECD Factbook 2010.