Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidates Shapiro and Garrity split on school plans
Governor Josh Shapiro and challenger Stacy Garrity offer opposing plans for Pennsylvania's schools and colleges.
Pennsylvania will spend nearly 40% of its $50.8 billion budget on education this year. Governor Josh Shapiro has increased education funding, backed adequacy-based reforms for public schools, and advanced affordability initiatives in higher education through grants, scholarships, and tuition caps. All told, the state has added more than $3 billion in education funding during his tenure. Shapiro has directed billions of additional dollars toward public schools and backed an adequacy formula aimed at underfunded districts.
Shapiro has backed big spending increases for inadequately funded public school districts. He has also supported a taxpayer-funded private school voucher program. His higher education platform focuses on state coordination, expanded grants, and initiatives to help Pennsylvanians earn degrees.
In the 2024-25 budget, Shapiro established the State Board of Higher Education. The board unanimously approved a 10-year strategic plan. The plan aims to increase credential attainment, control student costs, and align academic programs with high-priority economic sectors. It also calls for creating centralized public dashboards tracking return on investment, graduation rates, and institutional spending.
Shapiro's budgets delivered a 6% funding increase for Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education schools and community colleges. They included $120 million in expanded funding for student grants and scholarships. For his 2026-27 budget, Shapiro proposed a $30 million performance-based funding pool for state-related universities. State lawmakers ultimately approved $10 million in the final budget for that pool.
Shapiro favors income-targeted caps limiting out-of-pocket tuition and fees to $1,000 per semester at PASSHE institutions for families earning $70,000 or less. As Attorney General, he cracked down on predatory lenders and delivered millions in student loan debt cancellation to Pennsylvania students. As Governor, he invested millions into scholarships and grants to make college more affordable. In 2023, he signed legislation requiring state-related universities to publish expanded disclosures regarding finances, employment, and operations.
Garrity's education platform and contrasts
Republican candidate Stacy Garrity emphasizes school choice, tuition freezes, transparency, and economic growth strategies. She opposes the scale of Shapiro's adequacy funding approach while supporting alternatives to traditional public education. Garrity is the Republican state Treasurer of Pennsylvania.
She strongly supports public school alternatives. Garrity favors a broader school-choice approach that would steer more support toward charter, cyber charter, and private-school alternatives. Her campaign said her administration will work to reverse the migration of residents leaving the state. It said unleashing Pennsylvania's natural gas industry could produce 200,000 good-paying jobs during her administration.
In higher education, Garrity focuses on tuition freezes, transparency, and industrial job creation. She proposes a mandatory five-year tuition lock for every incoming undergraduate. Her campaign said ensuring job opportunities for new graduates is a key goal. It also said she supports fully subjecting state-related universities to the Right-to-Know Law. Republicans balked at the $5.4 billion size of the adequacy gap estimate and argued non-monetary reforms could help.
Public school funding adequacy efforts
In 2023, Commonwealth Court ruled Pennsylvania's public school funding system was inequitable and violated the state constitution. The court ordered lawmakers to fix the system but did not provide an exact remedy. Lawmakers assembled a commission to study the state’s education funding system and issue an action report.
The commission settled on using an adequacy formula to direct money to the most inadequately funded schools. Its initial report estimated the adequacy gap at $5.4 billion, but only Democrats signed off on that number. In 2024, the legislature passed a budget with a new funding formula and an initial adequacy payment. That budget's fiscal note calculated the total adequacy gap as $4.5 billion. As of this year, $1.9 billion has been put toward closing the adequacy gap.
Higher education challenges and state responses
Pennsylvania ranks 46th nationally in per-student state appropriations to public colleges and universities. The state's undergraduates face some of the heaviest debt burdens in the country. Pennsylvania's four state-related universities are Lincoln, Penn State, Pitt, and Temple. Since 2019, state funding for state-related universities has been flat and losing ground to inflation.
The winner of the November 3, 2026 election will shape whether Pennsylvania continues with Shapiro's adequacy-driven funding approach or shifts toward Garrity's school-choice and tuition-lock focused vision.
