Harvard Costs Less than Prison

In 2007, the states spent over $44 billion on the incarcerated. After adjusting for 2007 dollars, that’s a tin cup-rattling 127 percent increase since 1987. Currently, this works out to almost $19,000 per prisoner per year.


For the same period, the adjusted spending on higher education climbed 21 percent. Due to recent overhauls in financial aid, the United States could send their entire criminal population to Harvard for a four-year degree and still spend less money per prisoner per year. For those currently making less than $180,000 a year, the cost of a Harvard education is $18,000 per person per year.

With this in mind, one wonders how the states justify cuts in education that would benefit the free citizen: those who have yet to (or would never) embark on a career of crime. For less money, we could be graduating rocket scientists instead of paroling rocks.

Read full article at Blogcritics Magazine