Douglas Besharov, a well-known scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, came out last week with a new study that found that the true cost of early education--when the cost of increasing the quality of current programs, providing others services, and administering the programs is added in--are much more expensive than the figures usually used by policy makers and advocates. Here are the amounts he and his co-authors calculated:

* For center-based child care, about $8,908--not the widely cited $4,388 to $6,582.
* For pre-kindergarten/preschool programs, about $14,026--not the widely cited $3,551.
* For Head Start, about $21,305--not the widely cited $7,467.