Is Prison Academy Better than Harvard?

As the Class of 2011 prepares to enter the real world, many of them are hoping that their Harvard degrees will land them the perfect job. According to an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, graduating from California prison academy is more likely to secure you a lucrative career than graduating from Harvard.

While the sticker price of an undergraduate education at Harvard is upwards of $200,000, cadets at the prison academy stand to earn around $3,000 per month. Four years a long time to stay in college? Prison guard training takes four months.

The Wall Street Journal goes on to note that prison guards' starting salary, bonuses, vacation time, benefits, and pensions are comparable to or better than the average Harvard grad's career.

Plenty of people seem to be aware of this alluring option. Snagging a spot as a California prison guard is even more competitive than getting into Harvard. The correctional officer academy accepts less than 1 percent of its applicants, making Harvard’s 6.2 percent seem like easy odds.

Before you abandon your Harvard education, a quick search for "correctional officers" on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website shows some of the downsides to the job. One of the first things mentioned about the job is that correctional officers have one of the highest rates of non-fatal on-the-job injuries. As far as we know, investment bankers and consultants never have to deal with prison riots.