<![CDATA[Background: Indonesian regional governments must allocate at least 20% of their budgets to education, yet evidence on whether spending per student relates to enrollment and schooling attainment at the provincial level remains limited and inconsistent. Objective: To examine the association between provincial education spending per student and the senior-secondary net enrollment rate (NER) and mean years of schooling (MYS), accounting for students' economic background, fiscal autonomy, and the specific context of Papua. Methods: Cross-sectional study of 37 provinces (Jakarta excluded because it also funds primary and junior secondary schools). The 2024 provincial education budget (Ministry of Home Affairs via KPK, 2024) was divided by the number of senior high school (SMA) students in 2024/2025 (Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education). Outcomes were the 2025 senior-secondary NER (Statistics Indonesia) and 2024 MYS. Controls were the share of public SMA students from households earning under IDR 1 million or with no income, fiscal autonomy, and a Papua dummy. Models were estimated by OLS with HC3 standard errors, with six robustness checks. Results: Median spending was IDR 16.2 million per SMA student, with a 90th-to-10th percentile ratio of 2.3. Spending per student was not significantly associated with NER or MYS in the full models. Variation in outcomes was explained mainly by students' economic background and the Papua context. Excluding Papua, the NER coefficient turned positive (6.73; p = 0.097) but remained insignificant at the 5% level. Conclusion: At the provincial level, the size of education spending per student does not yet distinguish NER and MYS outcomes. Given the cross-sectional design, these results are associations and should not be read as evidence that spending has no effect.]]>
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