Ninety-three dollars and ninety-seven cents. On a college student’s budget, this would be enough money to cover the cable bill and cheap meals for the next few days.
Heck, when college students have this much money to their name, they’re pretty much considered rich — and beer is on them for the next tailgate.
But in a Michigan prison, $93.97 was the average cost incurred per prisoner per day in 2013, according to Michigan.gov.
In a year, the cost of a Michigan prisoner would amount to approximately $34,300. For an incoming freshman at MSU in 2013-14, the cost of tuition was $21,764.
So Michigan residents are required to pay taxes to house people who have committed wrongs in their life, while students, attempting to better their lives, must pay out of pocket or accept disheartening loans out of necessity.
An inmate gets a free roof over their head, while college students must work odd hours on top of class, or guiltily ask their parents to chip in a little money for their rent or boarding fees.
An inmate is provided three hot meals a day, while college students must decide whether they should spend their spare change on McDonald’s dollar menu items or just warm up the last cup of ramen in their cupboard for dinner.
An inmate has access to free health care, while MSU students get only three free visits to Olin a year. After they’ve used those up, more germ-prone students suffer with sniffles and sore throats as they pull all-nighters for their finals.
An inmate gets heat and air conditioning, while college students usually make do with a mere window fan in the dorms or put on layers of sweatshirts and sweatpants to keep the cost of heating their apartment down.
Most inmates are also offered access to a weight room, television and library, while students must pay for gym passes, cable and — most importantly, and typically most expensive — their textbooks.
In fiscal year 2010, the Michigan Department of Corrections had a $1.2 billion prison budget. However, combined with the more than $69.7 million state expenditures outside the department’s budgets, the total cost of Michigan’s prisons was nearly $1.3 billion, according to a factsheet from Vera.org.
It seems backwards to allot such an enormous budget to those who have chosen not to abide by the law when college students are struggling to pay their own way for the much more noble cause of earning a degree to serve their purpose in society.
The state of Michigan should invest more of this money, or at least an equal amount of money, in providing scholarships and opportunities to hardworking students.
Perhaps the state should also focus on offering more reform programs for troubled citizens, rather than keeping the exceptionally high number of prisoners behind bars for $93.97 a day.
If people have the option to steal from their neighbor or earn a college degree for an improved lifestyle, you would think government budgets would encourage them to do the latter. Unfortunately, it seems both going to prison and going to college are routes for access to a decent lifestyle — and breaking the law is the quicker option.
Colleen Otte is a State News reporter. Reach her at cotte@statenews.com.
