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Sound of Money: Back-to-school shopping
A customer shops for back to school supplies at a Target store.
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Tess Vigeland: It's two weeks 'til Labor Day, but kids are already going back to school. And that means back-to-school shopping. Wall Street is hoping for healthy retail sales this monthm which bring us to a new occasional segment.
Millie Jefferson: This is the sound of money:
Sound of school bell ringing
$544 billion: That's the amount that public elementary and secondary schools are projected to spend this school year.
Break that down and you get:
$11,000: That's the amount those schools will spend on each student. And those students are spending too.
$902.22: That's how much the average college student will spend before heading to school.
$83.8 billion: That's the total amount that the National Retail Federation expects American K through college students and their families to spend this back-to-school season. By the way, that's up more than 11 percent from last year.
Lesson over. Class dismissed.
Sound of school bell ringing
Where in the hell is all the money for education going? I'm 35 and remember that when I was a kid in the early 1980's, most utensils and materials were provided by the schools. My nephew brought home a list that shocked me. I suspect most of it is going to teacher and administrator salaries...which is unfortunate. I drove by a school last year and could not help notice the number of luxury automobiles in the teacher parking area. I don't remember teachers driving BMW and Mercedez automobiles when I was a kid. Still, I keep hearing the lines from the late 1970's that teachers don't make much. $40,000 to $60,000 a year for around 180 days isn't bad considering it is three to four times the minimum wage; if not more.
