And, Wyoming is dead last in dollars for funding, but second in tax environments. Clearly Wyoming has a sparsely populated state, but per capita was supposed to account for that.

As a native Marylander, I am a bit intrigued by how the recent tax changes targeted at businesses will effect this sort of data. It is already seemingly hurting Maryland in comparison with other states (1 year avg < 3 yrs < 5 yrs), but other factors may come to play.

Perhaps a great indicator is population density, or more specifically educated peoples density.