The Deaf / Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their Education in the United States

by Harry Best

COST TO THE STATE FOR EDUCATION

Value of the Property Used for the Education of the Deaf

The various provisions for the education of the deaf have now been examined. There is to be considered but one question further. This is, what is the cost of it all? In the present chapter we are to see if we may not obtain some figures representing this cost to the state. First we shall find what the plants, that is, the grounds and buildings in actual use, are worth in dollars and cents.

Taking the nearest available statistics, which are those for the year 1912-1913, we have the plants of the institutions valued at $16,856,338,[570] or, in round numbers, nearly seventeen million dollars. In all the institutions there were in this year 11,894 pupils, and we may thus calculate that there is property worth $1,414 for each pupil. We do not know the full value of the property used in the day schools and the denominational and private schools,[571] but this would no doubt increase by some two million dollars the value of the property employed in the instruction of the deaf. Hence we have something like nineteen million dollars as the amount invested in plants for the education of the deaf in the United States.

For new buildings, repairs, and general expenditures for lasting improvements, so far as is reported, there was expended on institutions $848,068 for the year 1912-1913, which may represent the yearly cost of the upkeep of the institutions.[572] For the other schools we have few figures, but they would add to this sum somewhat.

Cost of the Maintenance of the Schools

For the maintenance of the institutions for the year 1912-1913 there was expended $3,297,440.[573] In forty-four, or about two-thirds, of the day schools for the year 1911-1912 there was expended $182,710, and on the basis of $120 as the average cost of the pupils in them, we have $225,720 as the full cost of the support of the day schools. For five of the private schools, the cost per pupil was $225, and assuming that this will hold for all, we have $133,550 as the full cost of the support of such schools, a part of course coming from tuition fees. Then our total expenditures amount to $3,656,710,[574] or to over three and a half million dollars, which represents the annual cost of the education of the deaf in the United States.[575]

Form of Public Appropriations

Save for certain endowment funds in a few institutions,[576] and for limited donations in a small number of schools, all the means for the support of the schools for the deaf, other than the private ones, come from the public treasury. In some of the day schools there are municipal subventions; in a few states the maintenance of certain pupils is paid for by the counties from which they come;[577] and in the case of the Columbia Institution at Washington support is received from the national government.[578] With these exceptions, the entire maintenance of the schools is undertaken by the legislatures of the respective states.[579]

Appropriations by the legislatures are usually made in lump sums.[580] In the case of the semi-public institutions the allowances are upon a per capita basis, being from $260 to $357, but more often near $300. In a few of the state schools appropriations are also based upon the number of pupils, as in Alabama with $230 a year for each pupil, in Kentucky with $150 a year, and in Iowa with $35 a quarter, the last two states having additional annual grants. In the states in which pupils are sent to schools outside, a sum of from $200 to $300 is allowed for each pupil thus provided for. In a few cases funds are received from a special tax assessment levied for the benefit of the school, as in Colorado with a one-fifth mill tax on the assessed property valuation of the state,[581] and in North Dakota with six per cent of one mill.

Cost to the State for Each Pupil

The average cost for the support of the pupils in the institutions for the year 1912-1913 was $277.23.[582] In few of the schools does the cost go as low as $200, while in a number it is between $300 and $400. The cost per pupil in the day schools averages, where known, $120.60;[583] and in the private schools, where known, $225.33.[584] For pupils in the common schools of the country, the average cost is $31.65.[585] Thus it costs the state eight times as much to educate its deaf children in institutions as it does its hearing children in the regular public schools, and four times as much to educate them in day schools.

The education of the deaf, then, is not an inexpensive undertaking on the part of the state. Because of the special arrangements necessary for its accomplishment, it comes high, compared with the cost of education in general. But considered merely as an investment, the outlay for this instruction bears returns of a character surpassed in few other fields of the state's endeavor.