Introduction

“It costs more to incarcerate someone for one year than it would to send them to the University of Iowa.”

Source of claim

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, seeking the GOP presidential nomination, at a July 17 event at the Hamburg Inn in Iowa City

Analysis

Huckabee has made similar claims since 2008, when he won Iowa's Republican caucus, but failed to get his party's nomination for president. His 2009 book, “Do the Right Thing: Inside the Movement that's Bringing Common Sense Back to America” explains Huckabee's belief that spending money on kids and families is better than paying for incarceration later.

“In my home state of Arkansas, it costs more money to incarcerate someone in the state prison for a year than it does to send that same person to any college or university in our state with paid full tuition, room and board, and books.”

Huckabee tweaked that statement July 17 in Iowa City by saying it costs less to keep someone in prison for a year than to send them to the UI.

According to the Iowa Legislative Services Agency's 2014 Fact Book, it costs between $20,763 and $59,630 a year to house an inmate in Iowa's prisons.

At the low end, is the North Central Correctional Facility, a minimum- and medium-security prison in Rockwell City. The most expensive prisons are the Iowa State Penitentiary, a maximum-security prison in Fort Madison, at $57,841 per inmate per year, and the Iowa Medical and Classification Center, in Coralville, which houses Iowa's sickest inmates, at $59,630 per inmate, per year. The average annual per-inmate cost at Iowa's nine prisons is about $34,800.

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When it comes to the annual cost of educating a UI student, Hogan Gidley, Huckabee's senior communications adviser, pointed us to the UI admissions site, which outlines the estimated cost of attendance for undergraduates for the 2015-2016 school year.

For tuition, fees, on-campus room, board, books, supplies, personal expenses and transportation, the UI estimates a student from Iowa will pay $21,010. Non-residents will pay nearly double at $40,796.

The Iowa Board of Regents earlier this week proposed a 3 percent tuition hike for resident undergraduate tuition for the spring 2016 semester that would add about $100 to each student's tuition.

Why is prison so much more expensive than college?

The bulk of the state's approximately $275 million annual prison costs goes to staffing. Round-the-clock correctional officers, high-tech security systems and intensive programming aren't cheap. And then there's the cost of feeding, housing and clothing inmates.

Prescription drugs, surgeries and treatments, such as dialysis, boost prison costs for a population often paying for reckless behavior by contracting hepatitis, AIDS and cancer. By law, Iowa is required to provide inmates the same level of medical care as they would receive on the outside.

State appropriations pay for nearly all of Iowa's prison costs, compared to only about 35 percent of the UI's general education fund.

Conclusion

Huckabee wasn't completely clear in his July 17 Iowa City appearance how he thinks the U.S. should invest in children to help them stay out of prison. But he's right it's less expensive for a resident undergraduate to attend the UI for one year than for the state to put someone behind bars.

The estimated cost of attendance at the UI for 2015-2016 is about $21,000 -- $100 more if the regents approve a 3 percent tuition hike for the spring — compared to the average annual per-inmate cost of $34,800 in the Iowa prison system.

Nonresident undergraduate expenses of $40,000 at the UI are slightly more expensive than the average annual cost of incarcerating one inmate in Iowa. But since Huckabee's comments seem to be focused on investing in Iowa kids to keep them out of prison, the resident comparison seems more apt.

We give him an A.

Criteria

The Fact Checker team checks statements made by an Iowa political candidate/office holder or by a national candidate/office holder about Iowa. Claims must be independently verifiable. We give statements grades from A to F based on the accuracy and context.

If you spot a claim you think needs fact checking, email us at factchecker@sourcemedia.net.