Definitions focusing on socio-economic status and parental educational attainment rather than ethnicity or immigration status can avoid discrimination of particular students and help create a more balanced social composition, benefiting students and the whole education community with some financial implications. While state grants use this equalisation approach to ensure that funding responds to local needs, funding from the state grant is not earmarked specifically for education. Municipalities can allocate resources across public services and then between schools, taking into consideration that schools and students have differing needs. Municipalities in Sweden have much autonomy, as they decide how resources will be distributed between their schools.