How Much Do We Care About Education?

As I stated before, the United States is on an increasing trend of reducing the educational budget in order to accommodate the growing incarceration facilities and bill. Education and graduation rates are decreasing all the while our incarceration is at an all time high and keeps growing. America already houses twenty-five percent of the world's inmates and the trend has no clear views of stopping.

But how much do we actually value our education over incarceration in terms of money. Well CNN Money has a graph titled "Education Vs. Prison Cost" to help decipher the question.

Source: US Census Data and Vera Institute of Justice

As can be observed we place a higher priority on inmates rather than the students in our educational system. Inmates who must rely on the state's assistance and dime to live receive more importance than a student who is working on bettering the United States both economically and politically.

States like Pennsylvania and California spend four times more on incarceration while they fall behind in educational ranking. Only a handful of states spend more than ten thousand on students per year and only a handful of states spend less than twenty thousand on incarceration.

We need to change the importance of incarceration over education. As I have repeated before, incarceration has no economical value. It is a void that gives no return as the inmates do not produce a product. Education on the other hand has infinite potential to boost the economy. With a smarter work force and population, more smart investments are made and work is quickly found for educated citizens.

It is alarming to find out how much states spend on incarceration versus their educational spending. Especially since the United States just came out of a recession and its deficit is still increasing.

Source: "Education vs Prison Costs." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2014.