In an article entitled, "Texas spends millions on college for prison inmates," Mike Ward states how Texas is giving inmates the opportunity for higher education while in prison. The tuition does not need to be payed back until after they are out of prison and over a period of time. Before recieving higher education classes, they are required to agree to pay back the full amount when they are released or paroled. Out of the 22,000 ex prisoners who had recieved aid for this program, only 6,630 have reimbursed all of the money loaned to them by the state, which adds up to about $4.5 million. There is an estimated $9.5 million that is owed to the state from the remaining 16,088 ex cons that haven't paid it back.
Although there are statistics that show that inmates who were educated have a higher recidivism rate, the $9.5 million that is not yet paid back to the state stands out a little more to me. I think it is unfair and unnecessary to be providing higher ed to felons instead of trying to reach out to the people who haven't gone to prison. I think we can take the total of $15 million and use it toward people who can't afford college instead of cutting the amount of financial aid that is given to law abiding citizens. I personally think that spending could easily be cut if we didn't spend so much money on programs like this that we don't even need!
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In the blog article "Texas Spends Millions on College for Prison Inmates" the author stipulates that education funding for the incarcerated should instead go to the un-incarcerated under the premise of relative deservedness, but there are serious flaws to merits of such a policy, primarily this is because cutting higher education for the incarcerated costs more in the overall budget than not cutting higher education for the incarcerated.
This can be easily demonstrated by breaking down the costs of higher education and its effects on recidivism rates versus continuing cost of incarceration:
The most conservative estimate found for the cost per year of the average incarcerated prisoner, $22,000 per year.
The average recidivism rate for ex-prisoner is about 52%.
“Studies suggest that prisoners who participate in higher education demonstrate much lower recidivism than those that do not. For example, one longitudinal analysis of 3,000 ex-offenders found that those who participated in prison education programs were 29 percent less likely to return to prison (Steurer, Smith, & Tracy, 2001).”
Assuming that 29% of the 16,088 ex cons that haven't paid back $9.5 million would be back in prison without having participated in higher education, with the cost of 4665 inmates at $22,000 dollars a year, the incarceration costs alone would exceed the $9.5 million lost in unpaid loans in less than two months.
The Texas budget exists as complicated and interconnected piece of legislation. The effects of cuts need to analyzed within the larger framework to discern their overall effect. Providing higher education for Texas inmates comes at a surplus to the overall Texas budget, and should not be considered for budget cuts. For every dollar cut many from these programs, many more dollars must be spent baby-sitting the incarcerated, dollars wasted that could be spent benefiting society.
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