Experiences of the four countries Barbados, Turkey, Chile, and Egypt on the expenditures necessary for the use of computers in schools have helped to generate some guidelines and formulas. This will help policy makers and planners to estimate the cost effectiveness of computer use in education.

The above table is taken from article The Costs of Computers in Classrooms: Data from Developing Countries. It summarises the allocation of costs by category as well as reports total costs per school, per student, and per computer.

According to the article there are several categories that need to be looked at when analysing costs of ICT in education. These include:

Hardware
Equipment costs consume 17 to 49 per cent of total project costs, not including servers and connectivity hardware. The largest proportion of these costs goes into student computers with student computers typically representing 14 to 32 per cent of the budget.

Networked computers cost less than PCs, they require little maintenance, and they do not need to be replaced every few years. However, more technically proficient network administrators are needed, speed of terminals is greatly reduced at times of heavy traffic, and they lose functionality if the case of a server breakdown.

Needless to say that the total number of computers purchased also influences total project costs. The number of computers actually required by a school greatly depends on kind and amount of usage. In general, schools have to decide between a centralised laboratory model and a more diffuse classroom model.

Software
Software costs vary with the intended use of the computers. While it is apparent that a large pool of software resources involves higher costs, it must not be neglected that hosting a wide range of software applications can increase the amount needed for training and support as well. Freeware can solve parts of the cost problem. Specialised software as well as software in languages other than English may be costly and difficult to obtain. Software for instruction and network usually incurs greater expenses than server and other administrative software.

Connectivity
The costs of connectivity rely on the expenses involved in preparing a building for connectivity that suits heating, ventilation, and security requirements, the costs of equipment and installation, and on recurrent connectivity charges. For example, downloading materials in a slow network can be costly in terms of staff time. When choosing a connection model factors such as the amount of information to be transported, reliability requirements, potential partnerships with other users, characteristics of the terrain, and distances should be taken into account.

Maintenance and Support
The number of support staff required depends on the number of computers, the number of software applications, and the ability of users.

The following factors, extracted from article They Cost More Than You Think!, elaborates on maintenance and support costs. It states that the needed annual expenditures for a healthy education computer system can range from 30 to 50 per cent of the initial investment in computer hardware and software.

• Most schools, be they primary, secondary or tertiary, will trade off service level and convenience for cost. Schools will often tolerate computers not working for weeks and months, because they have no money to fix them, in contrast with businesses that will not tolerate lack of computer functioning for more than hours or a few days at most.
• Some "gifts" to schools will actually be more costly to accept than to reject-because older or used equipment and software may require too much time, adaptation, and cost for upgrades to be useful. Most schools are not used to turning down "gifts" even when they are too expensive to accept.
• The rise of the Internet for educational purposes adds a further source of ongoing cost. Many early installations for computer laboratories or computer access in classrooms have not easily accommodated these costs.
• Even in countries with low labor costs, the cost of trained, available personnel to service computers and networks, and of training of staff to make good use of computers, is really the largest single cost item of owning computers. Hardware continues to fall as a percentage of total cost of a computer system.