State money for prisoner education?

College students know the value of their money. They feel firsthand the impact of high tuition and struggle to get financial aid. Money, it seems, is always tight. And while this is a somewhat accepted hardship, an increasingly frequent policy utilized by IU, among other schools, has students asking if the money is really going where it should – namely, whether it should be going to prisoners.\nThere’s a growing trend in prisons to offer inmates the chance to study vocational or college-level subjects, often provided for what appears to be free. IU provides this to inmates through distance learning programs in the School of Continuing Studies. The reasoning, at first, appears to be sound. Inmates who are educated while in prison are less likely to repeat their offenses, and often receive shortened sentences, which translates to less taxpayer dollars spent on keeping them incarcerated. This, proponents argue, saves money.\nThat might be true of the whole picture – that the net effect is dollars saved. But when the state pays IU to educate inmates, that’s education funding that isn’t going towards students at its campuses. Many students go through great pains to get funding for school, or simply can’t afford to go at all. Is it right that money that could potentially be used to educate them is instead going to felons? \nIt’s not that this program isn’t effective; education is widely believed to be the primary tool in lowering crime. But the state shouldn’t be taking money away from students to pay for convicts to learn. There has to be some way to impart equity into this program, to help these inmates pursue better things while not depriving any deserving students of funding.\nSome people go too far in calling for an end to the program. They argue that the very idea of giving money to educate inmates is unfair. Some of these people think that providing this advantage to inmates is a reward for people who have behaved poorly and robs the law-abiding citizens of their hard-earned money. However, as the basis of our correctional system is rehabilitation, not simply punishment, it is fitting that we fix the problems that create crime in the first place by providing better opportunities to people who cause it. To do otherwise simply ignores the root of crime and merely treats the symptoms, which will only cost more (in terms of money and hardship) when felons inevitably commit future offenses. \nHowever, there’s no reason this program has to be a large burden to taxpayers. It would be appropriate that these inmates, who upon release are imbued with the potential to earn money, pay back the expenses the state underwent in educating them – essentially that a portion of their paychecks be garnished until the debt is repaid. If we could do this, we could transform one-time convicts to self-made citizens, who, like their IU counterparts, have paid the full price for the opportunities they now enjoy.