Planning to enroll your child in pre-K or kindergarten for the first time? The good news for parents in Pennsylvania is WalletHub found the early education system in the Keystone State is better than what is offered in neighboring Delaware.
The bad news for Pennsylvania parents is the state's early education offering New Jersey, which is ranked in the top five nationally.
Those are just a few of the takeaways in WalletHub's from WalletHub's in WalletHub's "States with the Best and Worst Early Education Systems" report.
More than 100,000 Pennsylvania students were enrolled in public kindergarten for the 2025-26 school year, according to the AECF Kids Count Data Center.
Here's everything parents need to know from the WalletHub report.
Why did Pennsylvania rank in the middle for early education?
Pennsylania finished
17th overall in WalletHub's early education study, placing ahead of Delaware but behind neighboring New Jersey.
WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across measures of access, quality and resources for early education programs.
The analysis examined factors such as preschool enrollment, pre-K quality standards, school safety requirements, spending levels and child care affordability to determine each state's overall score.
Pennsylvania ranked high in the resources and economic support metric — 7th — but lagged in two other main metrics used by WalletHub.
Pennsylvania ranked 16th in the access metric, and 36th in the quality metric.
Where did Pennsylvania score especially well?
Aside from the main metrics, WalletHub credited Pennsylvania's investment in its early education system.
WalletHub ranked Pennsylvania 3rd in the "Total State Head Start Program Spending per Child Enrolled in Preschool" metric, behind only Alaska and Oregon, which tied for first.
Overall, WalletHub's findings suggest Pennsylvania offers families relatively strong access to early education resources and support programs, including high marks for Head Start spending, though the state did not score as well on quality measures used in the ranking.
How did neighboring states rank for early education?
A few states in the greater Mid-Atlantic region fared better than Pennsylvania in WalletHub's early education study.
Here's where WalletHub ranked nearby states:
- Washington, DC: 1st
- Maryland: 3rd
- New Jersey: 4th
- Delaware: 25th
- New York: 33rd
- Massachusetts: 47th
At the opposite end of the spectrum, Indiana ranked last (51st) in WalletHub's study, behind New Hampshire (48th), North Dakota (49th), and Missouri (50th).
Damon C. Williams is a Philadelphia-based journalist reporting on trending, breaking and service-related topics across the Mid-Atlantic region for the USA Today Network.
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Why WalletHub put PA in the middle for early education
