High-Quality Early Education: Cutting Crime and Saving Tennessee Up to $160 Million a Year in Education Costs
Aug 24th 2010
Law enforcement leaders have supported high-quality early education as one of the most cost-effective ways to cut crime and reduce state costs for correctional and other social services over the long term. The research is clear that at-risk children who attend high-quality early education are less likely to commit crimes as adults and more likely to complete high school and become competent adults who can support themselves and their families. Researchers have found that, in the long run, quality early education saves as much as $16 for every dollar invested.
A projection by Fight Crime: invest in Kids Tennessee shows that quality early education investments, including pre-k, can also produce significant short-term savings for Tennessee’s education budget, by reducing special education costs by ten percent.
Tennessee spends nearly $800 million a year on special education services, but invested only about $84 million in their state-funded full-day pre-k program in Fiscal Year 2010. The new analysis shows that if and when the federal government and Tennessee can fund high-quality pre-k for all Tennessee families that would want it, at a projected total cost of $480 million, Tennessee could realize savings of as much as $80 million in special education costs alone. Because high-quality pre-k can reduce grade retention and improve the learning environment, the total K-12 education savings could reach $160 million a year.
