CENTER ON JUVENILE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE EXEC SUMMARY
		www.cjcj.org

New York State of Mind?: Higher Education vs. Prison Funding in the Empire State, 1988-1998

CONTACT: Daniel Macallair
E-mail: [dmacallair@cjcj.org]
Tel: (415) 621-5661 x310

Introduction
Across the country, higher education budgets are in direct competition for prison funding. Previous studies by the Justice Policy Institute have shown that spending on prisons is overtaking what California, Maryland and the District of Columbia are spending on higher education. In some jurisdictions, more African Americans and Latinos are in prison, or entering prison, than are attending or entering universities. The Correctional Association of New York and the Justice Policy Institute bring this same budgetary analysis to bear in New York State.

Findings
1. Prisons vs Higher Education Budgets
The study shows that over the decade, there has nearly been a dollar-for- dollar trade-off between higher education and corrections funding . New York State contributions to the corrections operating budget surpassed state contributions to SUNY and CUNY systems for the first time in 1994-5. New York ranks 45th out of 50 states in per capita state appropriations for higher education, even though the state has the fourth highest per capita income in the nation. Significantly, the $615 million cut from SUNY and CUNY operating budgets over the decade roughly matches the cost of keeping New York’s nonviolent drug offenders in prison under the Rockefeller Drug Laws ($680 million).

2. Increasing Costs at CUNY and SUNY
The cost of putting so many nonviolent offenders behind bars has had a direct budgetary impact on the cost of attending CUNY and SUNY. From 1988 to 1998, the state share of CUNY’s budget has dropped from 76% to 49%, and tuition fees have tripled from $1,250 to $3,400. Including books, extra fees, room and board, the cost of attending SUNY for an undergraduate rose by 35%. This has happened during a time when the national median income has flatlined in real dollars, and declined for Latino families. The result is that while increased costs of attending SUNY represents 25% of the national white median family income, it represents 42% of the median income of black and Latino families.

3. More People of Color in Prison than in SUNY
For black and Hispanic youth, “going upstate” more likely refers to a trip to one of the state’s shiny new prisons than to one of the dozen good SUNY schools in the region. There are more blacks (34,809) and Hispanics (22,421) locked up in prisons than there are attending SUNY, where there are 27,925 black and 17,845 Hispanic students. Twenty-five years after the Rockefeller Drug Laws were introduced, more blacks and Latinos are entering prison than graduating from SUNY. These findings are particularly important given the controversy at CUNY around minority enrollment and open admissions.

Recommendations
The study recommends that the Rockefeller Drug Laws be replaced with more cost and crime-control effective measures. As most residential drug treatment programs cost less than $20,000 per participant per year, with some outpatient programs costing as little as $2,700 a year, substantial savings could be realized through drug law reform, which could be returned to higher education budgets.

This site and its contents © 2002 Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice