Educating a student with disabilities costs approximately twice as much, on average, as educating a student without a disability¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · reviewr2·q2
Currency · newest study 2020 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2025: baselines and conditions change
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? The education of a student with disabilities costs approximately twice, on average, what it costs to educate a student without a disability, and LEAs must pay for all services in each student's IEP irrespective of cost. → Krausen 2020
Evidence¶
Krausen 2020¶
Krausen, K., Caparas, R., Ripma, T., & Willis, J. (2020). Strategic resource allocation for the 21st century: How state leaders can address the silent recession. WestEd. https://www.wested.org/resources/strategic-resource-allocation/
q2 · i? · review · r2
The report's special education section states that because LEAs are obligated to meet FAPE and LRE requirements irrespective of cost, educating a student with disabilities is "approximately twice the cost, on average, of educating a student without a disability," citing Chambers, Shkolnik, & Perez (2003) and other sources.
"The education of a student with disabilities can therefore be very expensive — approximately twice the cost, on average, of educating a student without a disability"
Discussion¶
Learner Variables¶
- Learning Disabilities and Developmental Differences — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Related Claims¶
- Students with disabilities cost 50.5 percent more to educate to comparable academic growth than peers without disabilities — related
- Additional special education costs vary substantially by primary disability category — related
- Differentiating special education funding by disability, disability category, or student need can lead to improved outcomes for students with disabilities, and IEP-progress metrics offer a new adequacy-study measure — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
special-education-cost-twice-average |
title |
Educating a student with disabilities costs approximately twice as much, on average, as educating a student without a disability |
description |
Educating a student with disabilities costs approximately twice as much, on average, as educating a student without a disability |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2020 |
recheck_by |
2025 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-09 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — krausen-2020 |
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