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US funding for prisons vs. schools

The prison population of America is 2,228,424, which equals to the number of the population in Texas. The cost for each inmate amounts to $167,731 each year. This amounts to approximately $4.48 trillion per year. As a result, in all the states in Unites States, the cost per individual inmate exceeds that spent on students. This is faced with criticism since it is ironic for a country to spend more on prison than in schools (Congress 1500). As a result, most legislators and lawmakers in the country are coming up with efforts to question the United States system of reform.

The funding that is directed towards prisons has quadrupled and the trend is increasing each day. The greatest expenditure spent in prisons is due to the issue of US locking up approximately 25% of the world’s prisoners. This is ironic considering that US accounts for only 5% of the world’s population. The United States’ funding for schools amount to $550 billion every year for both primary and secondary public education. On an average, the schools spend approximately $10,658 per student though expenditures may greatly vary in different states (Books 240). In the USA, all the three levels of government contribute towards educational funding. The state and the local governments provide approximately 44% of the educational funding. The federal government contributes 12% of all the direct expenditures of education. Therefore, it is evident that the government of the United States spends more on prison than in schools due to the high number of prisoners it locks in its prison from across the globe. Thus, a lot has to be done to change the existing system to reduce the prison expenditures and increase its spending on education (Books 248).

Works Cited

Books, Sue. Poverty and Schooling in the U.S. New York: Rouledge, 2009.

Congress (U.S.), U S Congress. Congressional Record, V. 153. Washington, DC: Government Printing Press, 2007.