Education Law

The California Higher Ed. Funding Amendment

I sort of like it. It makes the right kind of statement. Here is the official summary. And here is Gov. Schwarzenegger's rationale:

California universities are known around the world as the crown jewel of California's education system [Evidence here]. Until recent years, California's priorities were clear: the state dedicated approximately 10 percent of its General Fund to higher education and just three percent on prisons. Today, California spends more than 10 percent on prisons and seven percent on higher education.

The issue of prison spending to higher education funding was an interesting one to me, so I decided to check out what other states are spending. I found this excellent data from Pew which PBS put into a map (see page 15-16 & 31 in the Pew Report). I wanted to view the data differently though, so below you can see the result. 

This is a heatmap of the ratio of $1 spent on higher education to prison spending. You can see the range is from some states like Minnesota spending around $0.20 on prisons for every dollar spent on education to Vermont, Michigan, Oregon and Connecticut which spend over a $1.00 for every higher education dollar. 

But, as if that is not concerning enough, it is the growth in overall prison spending that might be the most concerning (p.15): 

In 1987, states collectively spent $33 billion of their general funds on higher education. By 2007, they were spending $72.88 billion, an increase of 121 percent. Adjusted to 2007 dollars, the increase was 21 percent. Over the same timeframe, inflation-adjusted corrections spending rose 127 percent, from $10.6 billion ($19.4 billion in 2007 dollars) to more than $44 billion. 

Full post as published by Edjurist on January 06, 2010 (boomark / email).