Report: 11 states spend more on prisons than higher education

According to a new report by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 11 states spend more money on correctional facilities than public research universities. The report outlines how many states have cut spending on higher education while increasing budgets for jails and prisons. Higher education spending didn’t start to fall once the recession started. Funding for higher education in many states begin toppling back in 1990 from 14.6 percent to just 9.4 percent in 2014. Michigan, Oregon, Arizona, Vermond, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Delaware, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Colorado, and Connecticut all failed to make the cut. Each state has a higher …