It costs $50 million to fund free adult education programs in the state, and the majority of this money comes from Connecticut taxpayers. In 2025, Connecticut taxpayers spent $44 million directly on free adult education programs, including English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, across the state, according to the 2025 Statewide Profile Report about adult education programs. An additional $5 million, which came through federal grants, was spent on these programs.
Most local school districts allocate tens of thousands of dollars from their budget to support these programs, even in areas with small populations of adults without high school diplomas and people who do not speak English.
Statewide, 11.9% of adults do not have high school diplomas, while 4.4% of adults “do not speak English well,” according to the 2025 statewide report. These two groups of people, along with people studying for citizenship tests, are entitled to free classes under state law.
Each town is required to provide these educational courses to its residents, according to the statute, which was first codified in the 1950s. This can mean that the towns themselves provide these courses, or they pay other entities to provide them. Since instructors are billed per hour, not per pupil, classes that last only a few months can cost thousands of dollars per pupil.
For example, in 2021, 3.9% of adults in the Simsbury district, or 657 people, did not have high school diplomas, and only 1.2% of adults, or 210 people, “[did] not speak English well,” according to the 2021 Simsbury Adult Education Profile Report. The report does not state to what extent, if any, these populations overlap.
That same year, 19 people enrolled in Simsbury’s adult education program, which cost the town $88,000, according to the 2021 Report.
“When a town doesn’t have many people taking those classes, it costs an insane amount of money (per student),” Simsbury resident Lori Boyko said. Boyko received adult education class data through a Freedom of Information Act request, which she shared with Inside Investigator.
The adult education courses consist of ESL classes, citizenship classes, and courses for General Education Development (GED) Preparation. In the Simsbury school district in 2021, those courses had five, three, and 11 students in them, respectively.
No diplomas were awarded in Simsbury’s adult education program that year.
It takes an average of three months to earn a GED, although sometimes it can take up to a year. The other two programs—ESL classes and citizenship courses—do not issue diplomas.
Other districts spend even more on their adult education program. The Hartford Public School District—which is in significant debt—spent $1 million on adult education programs for the 2024-2025 school year, and received an additional $1.7 million in grants from the state. Three thousand students were enrolled in adult education programs that year. Out of the 68 people working toward a diploma, 42 of them received it that year.
There are ways to cut costs for smaller districts. In the 2023 fiscal year, the town of Simsbury contracted the Farmington Public School District (FPSCT) to handle its adult education programs, the Adult Education State Grants Program Manager, Marcy Reed, said in an email to Boyko. The email was shared with Inside Investigator.
Reed directed all questions to the Communications department for Connecticut’s Department of Education. No one could be reached by deadline.
The contract with FPSCT cost the town of Simsbury $68,349 in 2025, saving the district $20,000. During the 2024-2025 school year, Simsbury also received $7,863 in grants from the state to support adult education programs, and this year, officials estimate they will receive $9,518 for the same purpose.
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