5% of EU GDP is spent by governments on education - Issue number 117/2008 - Products Statistics in Focus

Most of the education expenditure in the EU comes from public funds, amounting to 5% of GDP. However, students and their families together with other private entities provided 12% of the funds of education institutions in 2005. The level of private funding clearly distinguishes the EU from the United States, where 33% of the funding of educational institutions is private. But above all, what distinguishes the two is that while the EU spent 5 657 PPS per pupil/student in 2005, the US spent 10 661 PPS.