South Carolina Ranks Among The Best States In The Nation For Early Education

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Charlotte Stories
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With early education shown to boost future earning potential but few states offering free preschool programs, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2024’s States with the Best & Worst Early Education Systems.

In order to determine the best early education systems in America, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 12 key metrics. The data set ranges from the share of school districts that offer a state pre-K program to the number of pre-K quality benchmarks met and total reported spending per child enrolled in pre-K.

South Carolina came in at #7 in the nation and North Carolina came in at #40.

States with the Best & Worst Early Education Systems

Overall Rank  State Total Score  Access Rank  Quality Rank  Resources & Economic Support Rank 
1 Arkansas 81.83 5 2 4
2 District of Columbia 74.47 1 24 6
3 Nebraska 74.46 7 4 24
4 Maryland 72.66 14 2 22
5 Oregon 70.08 13 19 1
6 West Virginia 67.84 8 11 20
7 South Carolina 67.41 19 4 34
8 New Jersey 66.75 10 11 19
9 Vermont 65.31 2 45 12
10 Connecticut 63.58 21 6 40
11 Michigan 61.79 20 9 26
12 Rhode Island 60.35 28 9 13
13 Louisiana 59.16 23 16 18
14 Pennsylvania 58.18 15 30 3
15 Illinois 57.61 4 44 30
16 Oklahoma 57.57 9 41 17
17 Delaware 57.50 25 20 5
18 New Mexico 56.79 6 41 35
19 Tennessee 56.51 24 14 43
20 Iowa 55.82 11 29 33
21 Alabama 55.77 16 31 9
22 South Dakota 55.47 38 1 37
23 Maine 55.39 17 41 7
24 Wisconsin 55.04 12 31 32
25 Kentucky 54.77 18 18 49
26 Washington 54.72 22 28 11
27 Texas 54.55 41 8 42
28 Virginia 54.18 49 7 14
29 California 53.50 40 23 2
30 Nevada 53.47 32 17 23
31 Kansas 52.99 3 50 36
32 Arizona 51.54 27 27 15
33 Utah 50.32 37 22 16
34 Georgia 48.95 47 15 27
35 Mississippi 47.99 30 31 21
36 Ohio 47.16 35 21 44
37 Florida 46.94 39 24 31
38 New York 45.23 26 45 28
39 Colorado 44.48 45 26 29
40 North Carolina 43.84 48 11 50
41 Wyoming 43.06 34 31 37
42 Hawaii 42.88 29 39 47
43 Idaho 40.20 44 31 41
44 Montana 40.03 42 31 45
45 Alaska 39.33 31 51 10
46 New Hampshire 38.97 43 31 48
47 Minnesota 38.04 50 40 8
48 Massachusetts 37.69 46 47 25
49 Missouri 35.03 36 49 46
50 North Dakota 34.50 33 48 51
51 Indiana 25.53 51 31 37