Education expenditure refers to the expenditure actually used for education in the financial budgets of the central and local financial departments. Education expenditure includes education expenditure (that is, personnel expenditure and public expenditure of schools at all levels) and education capital investment (building school buildings and purchasing large-scale teaching equipment). Education funds are paid in the form of money, which is an indispensable capital condition for running a school. In China, education expenditure mainly refers to the expenditure of the state for the development of education at all levels.

Public finance expenditure corresponds to public finance income, which is the second stage of public finance distribution. It is a process that the state distributes social products or national income in a planned way according to certain ways and channels. It is reflected in the whole process of arrangement, supply, use and management of public finance funds held by the government, and reflects the scale, structure, direction and use of public finance funds. Public financial expenditure, also known as government expenditure or public expenditure, is both dynamic and static.

Public finance expenditure is classified according to the function of the government, that is, according to the cost category of government expenditure. It can be divided into investment expenditure, education, culture and health development expenditure, national administrative expenditure, various subsidies expenditure and other expenditures. ：

Knowing the above two concepts, coupled with the functional classification of public finance expenditure, we can understand that education expenditure is an integral part of public finance expenditure.