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]