It’s a shame that Michigan spends so much more on prisons than on higher education. Our state spends about $1.19 for every dollar it spends on higher education. This is according to a study by the Pew Charitable Trusts. This amounts to about 2 billion dollars on prisons and about 1.6 billion on higher education. About one out of every 100 people in our state is in prison.
Perhaps if we spent more money on schools, we could keep more people out of prison. I would like to see a study linking the people in prison to the type of schools they attended. I feel that good quality schools with quality teachers would go a long way in reducing our huge prison population.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
I agree with your comments in theory, but in real life, where do you get the money. Just this morning the news is once again running its annual story that the governor and the state congress are fighting over a budget that is millions in the red. We can't just stop spending money on our prison system - what do you do with the criminals. And we don't have the money to increase on education, so how do you fix this.
ReplyDeleteBTW - Keep in mind that the ratio you cited is for higher ed (i.e. college). I hazard to generalize when I say that a majority of the people in prison where not college bound students in high school. And, many of our residents that go to college choose private or out of state colleges.