How much does your state spend on prisons and jails?

A study just released from the Grand Canyon Institute reported Arizona's three state universities get way less money than the state's prison system.

"If you're spending so little money on getting people to go to college and spending more money on prisons, what kind of message are you sending?" asked ASU student Alex Kearl.

College students weren't too happy to hear the state funding they'd love to have is being dumped into our prisons.

That's according to a study done by the Grand Canyon Institute.

Researcher Dave Wells said things were much different 10 years ago.

"We spent 40 percent more on universities than we did on prisons," Wells said.

And now? "Now we're spending more on prisons than universities," he added.

It's 40 percent more.

It's a lot of money in light of how funding has been cut for state universities in recent years, Wells said.

"Prisons have gone up 75 percent in funding in the last 10 years. Universities have actually declined 11 percent," Wells said.

Wells said it all comes down to who's behind bars and for how long.

Arizona requires all non-violent offenders to serve at least 85 percent of their sentence.

"We're the only state in the country that does that. So things like that are really factors that drive up the prison cost," Wells said.

According to ASU's website, it costs more than $24,000 a year, including room and board, to attend the university. Wells said it costs $20,000 a year per person to keep somebody behind bars.

"Corrections can't fix these things, either, even if they wanted to. They need to get the legislature to give them the authority to do that," Wells said.

It all comes down to state lawmakers. They determine the rules here about who gets what funding and if the state follows that mandatory sentencing statute.