Public schools across New Hampshire each face their own conditions, challenges, and advantages that should be considered to develop the most effective and comprehensive education funding policy solutions. How these factors relate to geography can help Granite Staters understand the public education landscape and how different schools can be supported to provide the best educational experiences for students.

New Hampshire is predominantly rural with urban pockets, such as Manchester and Nashua. The National Rural Education Association’s Why Rural Matters report identifies New Hampshire as one of the top 10 priority states for rural education, indicating the state has a relatively high prevalence of rural schools and districts compared to other states. Understanding the needs of schools-based geography is critical for education policy discussions in New Hampshire.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has four types of geographic characteristics (rural, town, suburban, and urban), which are then further broken down into subcategories based on size. The following table, adapted from the NCES, defines the classifications in order of most urban to most rural.

To promote clarity, this analysis categorizes each New Hampshire high school based on the most urban area within its district, which is often the population center. The focus on high schools enables consistency when comparing different schools since not all New Hampshire school districts serve all grade levels.

Examining free and reduced lunch eligibility (FRL) and cost per pupil within the context of geographic considerations can provide additional insights into funding needs for districts with different geographic and poverty indicators. FRL eligibility is a key indicator of socioeconomic need within communities and is used in the State’s education funding formula to calculate differentiated aid. Cost per pupil can be influenced by factors including school size, student need, local fiscal capacity, and community budgeting decisions, and may be a key indicator of financial resources currently available to schools.

When these data are examined, the classifications with the highest FRL eligibility are midsize city, remote rural, and small city which spans both ends of the urban-rural spectrum. The lowest rates of FRL are midsize suburban, large suburban, and fringe town, which are closer to the middle of the urban-rural spectrum.

There is considerable variability in FRL rates, especially among Granite State schools designated as rural. Distant rural schools had the greatest range in the 2023-2024 school year: Hopkinton’s FRL rate was 7.07 percent while Littleton’s was 47.02 percent. While rural poverty is a significant concern, there are rural New Hampshire high schools with relatively little socioeconomic need based on FRL rates. This suggests that a one-size-fits-all approach to education funding may not target resources effectively.

Rural schools have higher average costs per student because they have smaller average daily membership in attendance. Some costs do not decrease proportionally to enrollment, meaning they become more expensive per student when they increase. For example, the cost of maintaining school facilities is a fixed cost. Most states, not including New Hampshire, adjust their state funding for local schools to account for geographic isolation, lower enrollment, or longer transportation distances.

Although school consolidation is an avenue for schools to achieve greater economies of scale, a report compiled by student researchers at the Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College shows that school consolidation can increase transportation costs and time, decrease local property values and employment opportunities, and negatively impact community values in rural towns. Higher costs per student may not necessarily mean there are inefficiencies in the way schools are functioning, but structural barriers that public policy could address. Thus, geography itself is an important consideration.

Cost per pupil can vary considerably by geographic type and enrollment. For example, Sunapee, with an enrollment of 131 students in 2024, had a 65.5 percent higher cost per pupil than Pittsfield, which enrolled only 30 more students. Local costs may vary widely among geographically similar districts because of property wealth—Sunapee’s 2023 equalized property value per pupil is more than seven times that of Pittsfield—and state differential aid that does not close the gap. The geographic classification data showing average FRL eligibility and cost per pupil for each classification, but they do not show the entire picture. There is variation between geography types, but also within them.

In New Hampshire, geographic context and socioeconomic resources vary drastically by municipality. Local context can inform education policy discussions so resources are most effectively targeted. Nuanced, individualized policymaking strategies that consider wide-ranging data can help ensure access to education regardless of ZIP code.

     – Matthew Swenson, Policy Intern