Utah entered fiscal year (FY) 2025 with K–12 still organized around the Minimum School Program (MSP) and its core Weighted Pupil Unit (WPU). Lawmakers set the WPU at 4, 494 and appropriated an MSP base of 6. 949 billion from state, local, and trust sources, preserving the formula’s central role and funding enrollment growth and inflation. Targeted one-time investments emphasized school safety (100 million) and continued growth of Utah Fits All scholarships (raised to 82 million). Utah remained near the bottom nationally on per-pupil spending—10, 333 in FY2023 (49th) —even after an 8% year-over-year increase. In higher education, the state continued performance-based funding and enacted a 147. 7 million net reduction to the FY 2025 base of 10. 61 billion via House Bill 1, without changing the performance model’s structure.
Willman et al. (2026) studied this question.