Since 1980, California has built 22 prisons and 1 university

In fact, three more colleges have opened in that time.

Do you think this is a case where correlation points to causation, or not?

After all, it is quite possible that the number of criminals in California has grown since 1980 to the point where it could fill 22 prisons, yet the cause of that growth has nothing to do with a shortage of universities, and owes more to a breakdown of the welfare system and the inefficiency of other systems, the educational one included. Could universities have prevented it under the existing conditions? All the more so since this art object does not display any data on a shortage of places in California's schools of higher learning: perhaps the number of institutions simply matches society's need for them?

What if prisons do not breed criminals, but merely keep them from strolling the streets and multiplying crimes, just as universities may have no direct bearing on crime figures, since in any case they do not reach the communities most prone to criminality?

Or perhaps this diagram is about something else altogether? Say, the ratio of the first type of population to the second in a given region?

On the other hand, it would be foolish to suppose that the number of universities is such a critical indicator, for even a single old university may be enormous in size and provide tens of thousands of student places, leaving no need to open new ones at all.

Besides, to be perfectly frank, a university education is by no means the only lawful road to a good income, least of all in the United States, least of all nowadays, especially when one considers the cost of higher education and the need to spend long years repaying the loans taken out for it.

Many questions, then, and plenty to think over and argue about.