California to spend more on prisons than schools

Over the next five years, California’s spending on prisons will increase nine percent annually. Education funding will

increase five percent. By the 2012 fiscal year, California will spend 100 million more dollars on prisons than on public universities.

California has had one of the most affordable and accessible educational systems in the country. In response to working-class struggle, the university system initially was structured to provide education for the working class. This has been consistently eroded. Community colleges that were once free now cost 26 dollars a unit.

Meanwhile, the prison-industrial complex has been strengthened. California’s rate of youth incarceration is twice the national average.

This reflects a national trend. The capitalist class has little interest in funding education for the working class unless forced to do so.