The U.S. Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba will soon be getting one of the world's most expensive schools - a $65 million facility with enough room for 275 students ranging from kindergarten through high school.
Funded by the $585 billion National Defense Authorization Act of 2015, W.T. Sampson School will house the children of sailors stationed at the base, have room for 50 faculty and administration members and meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards. The school will have every amenity of any newly built school - computer and science labs, art and music rooms, a playground, cafeteria, gym and even be assigned an address system, reported the Miami Herald.
The school is expected to be finished around April 2018 and will also include video-broadcasting, wireless technology and LED lighting.
To build a school in Miami-Dade County, Florida, it costs about $20,000 to $30,000 per student, while the new W.T. Sampson School will cost around $250,000, according to the Miami Herald.
As for the prisoners housed at the Guantanamo Bay prison, a Pentagon comptroller report found each one costing about $2.7 million per year, but because more prisoners have been released since the report was published, the per prisoner cost is likely closer to $3.1 million now, according to The Daily Caller.
Costs are more expensive at Guantanamo "because all materials must be barged to the island, and the construction contractor's crews must live on site for the duration of construction," said Cindy Gibson, spokeswoman for the Department of Defense school program, reported the Herald.
Gibson said she estimates that the build costs are "70 percent higher than the average construction costs experienced in the United States."
Other Defense Department schools receiving renovation funding under the spending act include schools in Belgium, Japan and North Carolina. The school being built outside of Brussels is the second most expensive, at $173,441 per student, and will house children of Americans serving in U.S. Army or NATO forces.
