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JANUARY 18 postsecondary education in prisons.2023

BY CHARLOTTE WEST

A look inside prison radio

Cynthia Gonzalez is a producer at Inside Wire Colorado Prison Radio, the first statewide prison radio station in the United States. Charlotte West/Open Campus

“Welcome to Hotlines on Inside Wire Colorado Prison Radio,” Tiffany McCoy says from behind the mic.

“Okay, we’re gonna stop and do that again,” Cynthia Gonzalez interrupts.

Tiffany and Cynthia are both producers at Inside Wire, the first statewide prison radio station in the United States. The station was launched in early 2022 by the University of Denver Prison Arts Initiative and the Now, it gives valuable training and, for some inside, a purpose. That’s particularly true for lifers, who often have limited access to education options inside.

Hotlines is a segment featuring announcements that airs multiple times per day. Amber Pierce sits across from Cynthia and Tiffany as they go through the updates.

After she shares info for a reentry

getting close to the end of her sentence at the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility, but she’s still waiting for a release date.

“One of my goals for getting out of prison is getting gainful employment,” she says. “My life can be a lot better if I learn how to prioritize.”

The studio is small, with barely enough room for the three women to crowd around a desk equally crowded with three desk-mounted mic arms, headphones, speakers and a Rodecaster. Black foam soundproofing panels are mounted on the wall behind Cynthia and Tiffany. The women wear baggy green pants, yellow t-shirts and gray sweatshirts with faded patches featuring their last names and DOC numbers.

‘I’ve had to find different roads to grow’

Inside Wire is one of several programs operated by the DU Prison Arts Initiative. It is among several prison radio stations across the country. The Louisiana State Penitentiary has operated KLSP-91.7 FM (known as the “Incarceration Station”), the country’s only FCC-licensed prison radio station since 1986, though earlier iterations of the station existed in the late 1950s. In Texas, men on death row run their own station. There’s even an international prison radio association.

Programs like prison radio stations have become an important outlet for giving people both access to meaningful professional training and opportunities for creative expression.

For Cynthia, Inside Wire was an opportunity to learn new skills. Because she’s serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole, she’s been shut out of any formal education programs.

“There’s an outlook that, basically, I’m a waste of space,” Cynthia says.

Lifers like her can’t usually get into education beyond a GED, she says, because there’s an idea that “you won’t ever use your degree. I’ve had to find different roads to grow.”

Out of a prison population of around 16,000, only 32 women and 87 men in the Colorado Department of Corrections were enrolled in formal college classes at the end of 2022, according to data Open Campus obtained in a records request. Training programs like Inside Wire offer an alternative, hands-on kind of education.

Producers earn a certificate, “Fundamentals of Sound Production and Audio Storytelling” from DU’s University College. The certificate grants continuing education credits, which are accepted by some colleges as transfer credits, but they cannot be applied to degree requirements from DU.

The certificate program teaches students how to use the audio equipment and produce stories. For her final project, Amber is working on a feature about the prison’s dog training program.

The challenges

While the expansion of federal financial aid for incarcerated students later this year is expected to increase access to higher education in prison, colleges like the University of Denver also help fill a programming gap in prisons by offering other opportunities such as journalism and creative writing and theater workshops.

Those programs tend to be accessible regardless of someone’s sentence, although projects like Inside Wire usually only involve a handful of people due to the physical space they require.

And access to the studio has been limited due to staff shortages, so the women are currently only able to work two days a week. GED and vocational instruction is limited, too, with instructors only teaching on Tuesdays. The rest of the week, teachers are being reassigned to work in other areas of the prison to compensate for a lack of correctional officers — what started as a pandemic stop gap has become the status quo.

Amber Pierce, Tiffany McCoy and Cynthia Gonzalez record in the Inside Wire studio at Denver Women’s Correctional Facility in Colorado. Charlotte West/Open Campus

Inside Wire also offers the opportunity for people to have a paid job, though it only pays pennies per hour. But there’s a disparity between the women’s prison and three men’s facilities where Inside Wire also operates stations.

At Denver Women’s, Cynthia is the only paid producer. She says she makes about $9 a month. Tiffany and Amber volunteer, but put in nearly as many hours. Amber has a paid position in the prison library, and Tiffany works as a porter.

While the studio at Denver Women’s is only allowed to have a single paid spot, the men’s prisons have multiple paid positions. Buena Vista and Sterling both have three paid producers, while Limon has six.

Back in the studio, program director Ryan Conarro sits working on a script for a spot he wants the women to record. Finishing up Hotlines, Tiffany takes a look and makes a crack about needing to decipher his handwriting before she can do a run through of the script.The women wrap up recording. It’s clear they’re having fun.

“Peace out!” they sign off.

++Inside Wire is broadcast online at coloradoprisonradio.com.

How an illicit cell phone helped me take college classes from prison

This story was told to Charlotte West by an incarcerated student in the South. It was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system.

On the first day of Zoom classes, my professor went straight into content I’m all too familiar with: the school-to-peer support specialist at a maximum security prison, I see the long-term impacts of poverty and a broken K-12 system in marginalized communities.

Later, I met two of my classmates in the criminal justice certificate program, which is run through a top research university in the Northeast. What I

do I work in a prison, I also reside there. And I’m taking the class on a contraband cell phone.

Before smartphones were a thing, having cell phones inside was about staying in touch with friends and family. As time went on, the tech ended up advancing and then evolving into the internet and having these touch screens.

Now, I’m connected to the world. Cell phones are about seeing what’s going on in the greater society. I’ve had to get creative because the prison I’m at, located in the South, doesn’t offer any opportunities to take college classes beyond a few vocational programs. That led me to pursue education. I chose a self-paced program, so that I don’t have to worry about the semester if I run into a situation where something may happen with the phone. I wanted a program that dealt with youth and so-called juvenile delinquency. That’s something that I’m not only doing now, but something I want to do if I’m allowed out of this place.

On Zoom, I use a filter with a nice, office-type setting as my background so that others don’t see my actual cell.

When I first started classes, I was a little nervous. I didn’t want to give any type of indication that I am in prison, because I didn’t want to be kicked out. On Zoom, I use a filter with a nice, office-type setting as my background so that others don’t see my actual cell. I never wear uniform clothing, I always wear a white t-shirt, or a t-shirt with some type of artwork on it to kind of change it up.

It’s generally gone smoothly, but there have been a few tech issues. When the university introduced a new multifactor authentication to log into class, it wouldn’t work. A friend tried to troubleshoot, but the professor ended up helping me when I told her I could only attend class on my cell phone.

“I didn’t know how to work it, but I knew I wanted one”

I was locked up at 19 years old. In 1990, I started serving a sentence of life with the possibility of parole for a firstdegree murder charge. The first time I saw a cell phone was in 2002. I was transferred to a new institution, and as soon as I entered the dorm, one of the guys I knew called me over. “You need to call your people?” And he put a cell phone in my hand.

I didn’t know how to work the phone, but I knew I wanted one. At that time, in the early 2000s, the phone call rates were crazy. They’ve gone down considerably, but at that time, everything was long distance, where you had extra charges for calls that weren’t local. Now, prices have gone down, but It’s still expensive. I can do a video call with my family without having to pay $10 for 10 minutes, and do emails free of charge, instead of paying 25 cents an email.

When my older brother died recently, I was able to go on and see the video of funeral services. I wouldn’t have been able to do that on a prison phone.

The first time I saw a cell phone was in 2002. I was transferred to a new institution, and as soon as I entered the dorm, one of the guys I knew called me over. “You need to call your people?” And he put a cell phone in my hand.

How do the phones get in? It was in the media, so this isn’t exposing anything. Drones are the main vehicle that’s used for that. They drop them into an accessible area outside where someone can retrieve them. I’ll put officers in there as well. We might as well expose their behinds. We hide the phones very meticulously…heating/AC ducts, thick books, etc.

Depending on availability, right now, a brand new iPhone 13 Pro Max or its competitor, the Galaxy S22 Ultra, will run $3,500 (more than 250% markup over the street price). Used and nonflagship models can run $800, or $1,250 for brand new. They’re not plentiful, so you have to be in the know. I use a prepaid service with a data plan.

There are consequences for using cell phones. Here, if we get caught, it’s only up to 90 days of restrictions. At most, you won’t be able to use the prison phone for 90 days, and you won’t be able to go to the canteen — that’s where you buy your food, your personal items and what not. And you won’t be allowed visitation privileges for 90 days. That is the max. In some other states, the penalties are stiffer, but at this point, I’d risk the hole or having more time tacked on to my sentence to have that connection to the outside world.

Staff, for the most part, do not look at having cell phones as a grave infraction. People use them in their cells. Staff can stumble across a cell phone plugged into a charger and just overlook it. It’s prevalent to the point where some officers use them to call for personal matters since they can’t bring their own phones in the prison.

“I wouldn’t have known about any of those things”

Without this type of access, there’s so much quality information that we’re not getting, important information about dealing with things like therapy, trauma and different self-help tools that we can get online.

It’s only been through my cell phone that I’ve had access to quality information about the institutionalization of incarceration, the psychological impacts, youth and brain science, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and all that. I wouldn’t have known about any of those things about my own development, or about why I did the things I did when I was a young man. No one in the prison system was able to answer those questions. And I’ve been able to share that information with others.

It’s also taught me digital literacy. Imagine getting out and not having this experience. I’ve pretty much mastered the phone. Had I not had this access, I would be oblivious.

I don’t want to waste the opportunities offered by having this connection to the outside world.

As far as education, I’m unique because most people use cell phones for communicating with loved ones and for internet access. I can’t forget the gaming as well. Some of these guys were gamers before they were incarcerated, now they’re gamers up in here. There’s a criminal element, but I believe it’s not as prominent as the greater society thinks, especially in state facilities.

I don’t want to waste the opportunities offered by having this connection to the outside world. I’m not just going to be playing around on the phone. I don’t think it’s worth taking the risk. Even though it’s really not a big deal here, I wouldn’t have one if I wasn’t doing something of benefit when it comes to classes or just learning things.

It most definitely can be used as a tool for bettering oneself. That’s what I’ve done. Not everyone is doing that, but the majority of guys are using them for their own personal way of dealing with incarceration.

From education to activism

Keri said she knew she wanted to write the story when one of her sources told her how he and dozens of other men used a group messaging app to teach each other Harvard’s CS50 curriculum, an entry-level computer science class available for free on edX.

“I was so blown away by their tech know-how, the hurdles they had to overcome to put together the class and get illicit access, and by the sheer number of people participating,” Keri told me.

Keri says that people in society often have a distorted understanding of how people use cell phones in prison. “When people are using their cell phones for positive purposes, we rarely hear about it because there are risks for prisoners to publicize this information and no incentive for prison officials to do so,” she says.

Here’s an excerpt from her story:

Some men use their phones to take online classes, posing as regular students in the free-world, a ruse that only works in the age of Zoom classrooms and online meetings. Others read digital versions of books that are banned behind bars, or teach themselves new skills by watching videos on YouTube and TikTok. A few men told me that was how they learned to fix broken phones and make spare parts.

For some, it became their prison hustle: If your phone breaks, or you need a cord made out of some random wires, these are the guys you go to. One man explained to me how he wrote and self-published a book through his phone. When he told me the title, I tracked it down on Amazon and noticed there was no way an average reader could tell how (or where) it had been written.

One of my favorite examples of the ways people use their contraband phones came from a man locked up in Georgia, who’s been using a group messaging app to help educate people incarcerated in other states.

“I run a group where we’re teaching guys computer science,” he told me on a call. “We’re using Harvard’s CS50 materials; they have all their materials online. There are a bunch of schools that do that, but I find Harvard’s are the best, and that professor — David Malan — I think he’s one of the best. We have about 300 people doing this right now. It’s a self-guided, self-graded class.”

Earning an Income

Even though contraband phones can cost anywhere from around $300 to $6,000, sometimes the devices pay for themselves, because a lot of prisoners use them to earn money. One Texas prisoner I interviewed had been selling his artwork online, while others say they have used their phones to learn how to trade stocks or do online gig work.

More commonly, I know guys who use their phones to get work as freelance writers. You might read their stories and not even know the author penned them from prison. Unfettered internet access makes research quicker, and one man explained that a pricey contraband phone can still end up being cheaper and more reliable than communicating in approved ways.

“Typewriter ribbons here are extortionately priced,” one federal prisoner explained. “Talk-to-text makes writing articles so much cheaper, even including the cost of the phone and the rate plan.”

A man in Texas boasted about his bitcoin trading prowess and sent screenshots of his account balances as proof, though he later lost access to the money when a guard confiscated his phone.

Some people earn money by renting out their phones or charging people to use them as hotspots to secretly connect their prison-issued tablets to the internet.“You can buy hotspot time for $1 a day,” a prisoner in one Southern state told me. “A dollar is two ramen noodle soups, and that’s how it’s paid for.”

Artificial intelligence and education justice

In the last few weeks, a new app, ChatGPT, has caused a kerfuffle in academia. The website uses artificial intelligence that writes answers to prompts using what its learned from millions of pages of writing from all corners of the internet. Christopher Beasley, a formerly incarcerated professor who works with reentry support at the University of Washington Tacoma, has been using ChatGPT to write a newsletter, Educational Justice AI.

He publishes AI-generated posts on topics such as how higher education in prison is both oppressive and empowering.

He uses AI as an aid in his research, helping to make connections and developing counter arguments. While he finds AI helpful, the technology will potentially further widen the gaping tech divide for people who are in prison, Beasley says.

There’s a steep learning curve for learning to interact with AI, “knowing what kind of questions to ask, how to ask those questions, and how to follow up on answers,” he says. “Incarcerated people will be among those who fall in the wrong side of this technical divide.”

Beasley is currently working with an incarcerated scholar doing public policy work. He shares AI-generated policy briefs as well as counterarguments with the scholar.

“I’ve…asked him to provide queries that I can run for him,” he says. “We’re just beginning this process so I can’t speak as to the outcome, but I hope that it gives him familiarity with AI and how to converse with it as well as the limitations.”

Welcome to College Inside, a newsletter about the future of

FEBRUARY 1 postsecondary education in prisons.2023

BY LYLE C. MAY

College on death row: “Y’all aren’t here to be rehabilitated.”

Father Dan offered me a life-altering opportunity that initially sounded farfetched.

“You need to get something on your mind,” he said. “What would you say to enrolling in a few college courses?”

I struggled to smother my disbelief. I dropped out of high school and my education ended with a GED from a youth detention center in Maine. I hadn’t had any kind of formal schooling since I came to death row in 1999 at the Yet, there was no doubt in my mind that I needed more than the horror of executions, more than the self-defeating behaviors that make prison violent warehouses of humanity. I needed the tools to separate myself from the person I used to be and reach for something better. The priest offered a way, and I took it.

On death row, the value of that offer was exponentially greater because it acknowledged my humanity and potential to overcome the odds.

Most prisoners struggle to learn, have impulse control and relational problems, and limited coping skills, which translates to an inability to set and reach goals, organize activities, or maintain a positive work ethic. Prison magnifies these problems, making stressful, difficult situations worse for people who already struggle to make effective decisions. Higher education is a way to directly challenge institutionalization, giving the incarcerated the tools to defeat criminality.

Considering the harrowing nature of prison, what, then, can be done to educate the incarcerated if it’s not supported by the environment?

After all, there is no education on death row. Our programs consist of mental health counseling, religious services, and recently a restorative justice circle. I campaigned for a GED program for the 20 guys who need one and was denied because testing occurs online and the programs department would not allow it. Another guy received a letter from the warden that said death row inmates are not incarcerated for educational or reformative purposes.

That meant our only options for education were the privately funded correspondence programs like the one Father Dan offered me.

The challenges of learning in prison

Learning in prison is the most difficult thing I have ever done. Although at times overwhelming, higher education changed my thinking enough that I soon recognized behaviors and peers counterproductive to my academic success and disassociated myself from them. I made better day-to-day decisions and planned for the future. It took nearly nine years because correspondence courses are much slower than online or in-person classes, but in 2013 I earned an associates in arts degree through Ohio University.

This was a huge accomplishment, considering the environment I was in. The normalcy of exceptional brutality — this idea that penal violence and harsh treatment in prison are ordinary and deserved — heavily impacts attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors in prison. In addition to excessive punishments, no meaningful programs or positive reinforcement, people in prison are constantly told or shown they are worthless and will never be thought of as more than a crime.

This sets up a self-fulfilling prophecy: people who are treated like crap tend to make crappy decisions. For many in prison this increases the likelihood they maintain a criminal lifestyle. Public officials naturally seize on this, enforce draconian policies that exacerbate the cycle, and never stop to consider their responsibility for the fundamental failure of prisons: that they are intended to reduce crime, not cause it.

In 2021, a unit sergeant told me and another incarcerated student on death row the prison education coordinator had terminated our access to correspondence courses. It didn’t matter that they were privately funded or we had caused no trouble. The only explanation came from the sergeant, who rather gleefully announced: “Y’all ain’t here to be rehabilitated.”

‘There will always be haters’

The attack on my higher education is nothing new. There had been similar attempts to delay and obstruct my enrollment in an effort to make me quit and dissuade others from pursuing college at all. It would take nearly a year, with a fresh round of formal grievances, letters to prison officials from outside parties, and retaining an attorney who agreed to file a federal civil suit on our behalf before I was finally able to enroll in a course.

But the damage had been done. A new more restrictive policy was created to prevent degree programs on death row by granting access to one college course at a time, setting attainment of my bachelor’s degree back by years. This isn’t the case everywhere — in states like California, people on death row are allowed access to many of the same educational programs as the general population.

Higher education trained me to persevere and solve problems just like this. It also gave me a deeper understanding of the historical, political, and sociological roots of this latest attack on higher education in prison. Higher education will never be universally supported by prison officials, administrators, and guards. It is both what makes pursuing a degree on the inside so difficult and success so sweet.

Prison helps no one, but higher education empowers those who are marginalized and oppressed. There will always be haters who tell you it’s impossible, naysayers who say you don’t deserve the “privilege,” and people who would rather put a boot on your neck than offer a hand up. But there are also people like Father Dan, who recognize the human potential left to rot in prison. By extending me the mercy of an education, he invested in that potential.

Having a higher education is the ultimate act of resistance, one that establishes you are more than a number or label, you are someone who meets the opposition and is victorious.

Lyle C. May is a prison journalist, abolitionist, Ohio University alum, and member of the Alpha Sigma Lambda honor society. He is the author of Witness: An Insider’s Narrative of the Carceral State, forthcoming from Haymarket Books in fall 2023. Follow his work at lylecmay.com.

Incarcerated Coloradans could get released early by going to college

FEBRUARY 7 2023BY JASON GONZALES

Supporters of House Bill 1037, which the House Judiciary Committee approved 11-2, say it will help incarcerated Coloradans find new opportunities and make it less likely they reoffend after release while also saving the state money.

The bill would provide incentives to state prisoners to take advantage of federal grants available to them starting this summer. The federal government also has expanded how many colleges and universities can educate incarcerated students, opening the door for more opportunities.

State Rep. Matthew Martinez, a Monte Vista Democrat sponsoring the bill, said to the Judiciary Committee that financial assistance removes the biggest barrier facing imprisoned students wanting to go to college.

“We’re getting them back on track and really making a difference in changing their lives,” said Martinez, who previously ran Adams State University’s prison education program. State Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat, is also sponsoring the bill.

Bikram Mishra, who testified to the committee, said that during his 10 years in a Colorado correctional facility his family helped pay for his college classes. It changed his life, he said, and he wants college access for other people in prison.

“We are trying to help people get better and we are trying to make sure that they’re ready for society,” Mishra said.

If signed into law, Colorado would allow students convicted of nonviolent offenses to earn six months off their prison sentence if they earn a college credential or certificate. It would also allow them a year off their sentence if they graduate with an associate, bachelor’s, or master’s degree.

Some Republican and Democratic lawmakers, however, advocated during the hearing for increasing the amount of time incarcerated students would earn for an early release. Some worried that a year off their sentence would not be enough to attract students to degree

programs and they would instead seek out short-term programs.

The bill would split money the state saves by releasing incarcerated students early between higher education institutions and the Colorado Department of Corrections.

Republican state Reps. Matt Soper of Delta and Stephanie Luck of Penrose voted against the bill in part because they want the Colorado Department of Corrections to keep more of the savings.

But all committee members, even those who wanted to see changes, said they support the idea to encourage people in prison to get an education. They said the testimony of former prisoners-turned-college graduates moved them to support the bill.

Martinez said data shows graduates are less likely to reoffend, especially if they earn a bachelor’s or master’s degree. That also means less cost to society, he said. In 2018, Colorado had one of the worst recidivism rates in the country — half of all formerly incarcerated people returned to prison within three years. National studies, however, show incarcerated people are less likely to reoffend if they get access to education.

Christie Donner, Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition executive director, said allowing incarcerated people the ability to learn while in prison goes beyond just what it saves the state. The bill represents the start of more conversations to ensure incarcerated people see a future for themselves, she said.

“Education helps you see yourself differently,” Donner said, “You have different ambitions and hopes and dreams and all that kind of good stuff. It’s really profound. And it’s so much better than just going to make license plates or sweep the floor or work in the kitchen. People can find a whole new life.”

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

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FEBRUARY 15 postsecondary education in prisons.2023

BY CHARLOTTE WEST

We’ve been asking the same question about prison tech training for 50 years

This story was co-published with Future Tense, a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.

A slight man wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a suit with a pocket square gestures as he stands before a group attentively. A guard tower and chain link fence loom in the background. “He offered these Arizona State Prison inmates a chance to escape from the past,” the text below the photo reads. “Could there be a future in computer programming for prisoners?”

The photo is from an ad in Scientific

Yes, 50 years. Not much has changed in conversations about prisons, education, and technology since then.

The benefits of tech training in prison were already known in 1970. People are less likely to return to prison if they have marketable skills that lead to jobs in high-demand fields with livable wages. But despite the promise of such programs, the pitfalls also remain the same: They can be costly; they can be difficult to scale; and they are subject to the whims of tech-averse prison officials.

While the pandemic helped make technology like tablets more common in prison, perceived security risks often trump opportunities for learning and rehabilitation. And as much as technological advances have allowed more wide-scale access to tablets (some of which come with high fees), they can just as easily be taken away.

Learning something useful for the future

The slender man in the ad photo is Glen McDermed, a marketing executive from IBM. In 1967, he proposed training incarcerated men to program computers to meet growing industry demand as tech companies began jumping on the information processing bandwagon.

“The men would learn something useful for the future,” McDermed said of the program in a quote accompanying the ad.

IBM employees taught the initial classes to 11 men. Long-term prisoners eventually took over training to make the program self-sustaining. The program offered the men “real-world” experience that saved Arizona millions of dollars in lucrative contracts between corrections and other state agencies, according to a 1970 cover story for Computerworld.

Similar programs were launched elsewhere, including Oklahoma and New York. A 1967 story in the New York

Times described a $1,200 computer course offered to incarcerated men for free. “The cells may be narrow, but the intellectual horizons are growing wider at Sing Sing,” McCandlish Phillips wrote.

The spokesperson for the institute offering the course told the Times that the men could learn programming without ever needing to touch a computer. At the time, code was handwritten until it was transferred onto a “keypunch card,” which was then fed into a mainframe computer.

In Massachusetts, more than 1,000 men were trained as programmers at Walpole correctional facility over the 1970s. The program there, sponsored by Honeywell, started the same year as the IBM program after a prisoner saw a newspaper want-ad for data processors.

But these training programs were sometimes short-lived, despite the benefit to individuals. William Short spent five years working seven days a week—at $3 a day—as a computer programmer at a maximum security prison in Somers, Connecticut. When he was released in 1975, he quickly found employment at an insurance company earning $13,400 a year (approximately $77,000 today). In a newspaper interview at the time, he said that learning a vocation in prison helps a man come out “with a whole frame of mind that is better than what he went in with.”

However, not long after Short was released, the program that had given him such marketable skills was no more. It had been shut down due to difficulties retaining an instructor, high costs, and staff resistance, the corrections commissioner told the newspaper.

By 1978, IBM’s program suffered a similar fate. A new warden had phased out most of the educational programs at the Arizona State Prison, the prison newspaper reported, because he “didn’t understand them,” as one man put it. “Under the guise of his security program, he put a stifle to the various programs around here.”

Tech training 50 years later

In 2023, the benefits from tech training in prison remain much the same. One big difference? Keypunch coding has been replaced by cloud computing and javascript. In 2022, the D.C. Jail launched an Amazon Web Services cloud certification in collaboration with APDS, an education technology company that provides tablets to people in prison, at no charge to the students.

Being able to provide the training on the APDS tablets was significant because “it’s really hard to provide any kind of STEM programming inside that leads to some sort of industry certification or a living-wage job afterward,” said Amy Lopez, former deputy director for the D.C. Department of Corrections.

Out of the 21 men who started the program, 11 completed the training. Most of those who didn’t finish chose to drop out or were transferred out of the jail, said Arti Finn, APSD cofounder and chief business development officer. The remaining men were able to take the high-stakes test to earn the Amazon credential inside the D.C. Jail, which was already set up to provide secure exams such as the GED.

Leonard Bishop, who participated in the program, hadn’t touched technology in the 17 years he served in the federal system prior to transferring to the D.C. Jail in 2018. When he first got a tablet, he said it took him a few days to figure out how to navigate through it, but then “I couldn’t put it down.”

Bishop said he was surprised by how easy it was to learn the skills he needed to earn the AWS certification. He said he looks at it as a career opportunity, rather than “just” a job. “It helps you transition back into society, especially for someone who has been gone so long,” he said. The average annual pay for an entry-level AWS cloud practitioner position is almost $90,000, according to ZipRecruiter.

The pilot program at the D.C. Jail supplemented the tabletbased curriculum with face-to-face instruction by Amazon employees and other experts and incorporated opportunities to practice job skills such as interviewing. But the hope is that the AWS curriculum, and other industry certifications, can be scaled to allow people to self-study for the certification on the APDS tablets, Finn said. It also increases access for people who aren’t able to take part in face-to-face classes due to schedule conflicts, such as with their prison job.

When APDS started talking with Amazon, one of the goals was to reach the large number of people who sit behind bars without any access to any kind of programming, Finn added. The tablets are also equipped with video communication and messaging services, and could be used to offer online apprenticeships that create additional opportunities for hands-on learning.

Certifications by themselves are not enough

Still, some are skeptical that tabletbased training alone will translate into high-paying jobs. It’s difficult to learn on a tablet, said Jessica Hicklin, who taught herself to code in prison. She’s now the chief technology officer of Unlocked Labs, a Missouri-based nonprofit that trains incarcerated software developers.

Unlocked Labs is trying to add the Amazon cloud certification to its own training platform because the underlying knowledge is useful. But, Hicklin said, it would be difficult to break into the tech industry without direct connections to companies that engage in second-chance hiring. “I’m not sure it overcomes the stigma” of having a record, she said.

There are other criticisms of tablets, too. APDS has committed to never charging incarcerated people for its content or services. (Corrections departments or other state agencies pay for their tablets, Finn said). But other technology vendors routinely charge exorbitant prices for communications services and entertainment content. Critics also argue that they provide surveillance creep, creating more opportunities for corrections officials to monitor people in prison.

And with the prospect of higher education becoming more widely available in prison with the restoration of federal financial aid later this year,

those companies are also trying to rebrand themselves as educational providers. The two largest tablet providers, Securus and ViaPath Technologies (formerly GTL), together supply more than 1 million tablets to U.S. prisons.

That means around half of people in prisons currently have some kind of tablet access. Just like in 1970, access to beneficial programs remains contingent upon supportive prison administrators. In fact, many incarcerated students are reluctant to criticize online learning opportunities out of fear they will be taken away.

Five years ago, for instance, Colorado became one of the first states to roll out tablets, which included educational programming, to around half of its prison population. But months later, prison authorities confiscated them. (The Colorado Department of Corrections did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

The June 1974 issue of La Roca, the newspaper of the Arizona State Prison, focused on a coding program for people in prison.

Today, most people in Colorado prisons still don’t have tablets. And across the country, the question posed in the IBM ad back in 1970—“Could there be a future in computer programming for prisoners?”—remains unanswered.

News & views

• In what might rival the oft-cited 2014 Rand study, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy released in January a summary of the largest meta-analysis of the positive impact of prison education and workforce programs. Those programs reduce the likelihood of recidivism by almost 15 percent, professors Steven Sprick Schuster and Ben Stickle of Middle Tennessee State University found in their review of published research. They also found positive employment benefits for formerly incarcerated people, including a 7 percent increase in the likelihood of employment and an extra $131 in quarterly wages. • The Prison Journalism Project released a database of current prison newspapers published across the country. They estimated that there were 24 operational, prisoner-run news publications in 12 states as of February 2023.

Welcome to College Inside, a newsletter about the future of

MARCH 1 postsecondary education in prisons.2023

BY RYAN MOSER

Hope vs reality as Pell returns to prisons

Hey there, I’m Ryan Moser, filling in for the indefatigable Charlotte West for this exciting issue of College Inside about the return of Pell in prisons. I started my journalism career behind bars and now I am working as a freelance writer. With thousands of incarcerated students eager to start college this year, we’ll be looking at the potential obstacles these students could face, and the role of departments of corrections and colleges in the rollout.When I was a resident at the Everglades Correctional Institution in Florida, I learned first-hand about the gap between the hope of starting college and the reality of doing this inside a maximum-security warehouse. I met some men who couldn’t attend college because of defaulted student loans, while others couldn’t prove state residency, even though they lived in a Florida state prison.

Pell is not enough

At the opening of our virtual event in February, Stephanie Gaskill, a research fellow at Loyola University New Orleans, shared her research, “Pell is Not Enough,” on the problems with the grants not covering necessary costs like college staffing, student transcript fees, and more. “That’s the biggest issue we’re going to face, that Pell simply can’t cover the cost of programming for university administrations or incarcerated students,” Stephanie explained. “Offering college courses inside prison is labor intensive and can cost the school thousands of dollars, not to mention the expense of staffing the classes.”

She said that a lack of information is one of the biggest challenges for Pell. For example, students don’t know that they have a lifetime limit (12 semesters) of Pell eligibility. “People need to be able to make informed choices about Pell dollars,” Stephanie said. “That’s your money as a student, and that’s being used on your behalf. And so I think it’s a responsibility for those of us helping to bring programs in to make sure that people are making informed decisions.”

Give everyone a chance to redeem themselves

When Angel E. Sanchez started serving what he thought would be a 30year sentence, he asked about education and was told that he couldn’t go to school until he had five years left on his sentence. “When I got down five years I was put on a waiting list and never got enrolled,” he said. After getting out and going to college, Angel eventually became a lawyer. Now he describes the unavailability of college to those with long sentences as one of the biggest challenges to Pell reinstatement.

Lifers encourage others to take advantage of opportunities inside. “This is a barrier that could keep the program from being a success,” Angel said.

The Pell Grant has been touted as a universal benefit that is “sentence blind and crime blind,” Angel said. Institutions

have been encouraged to offer college applications to everyone, regardless of their length of sentence, but states have a lot of leeway in how they determine who can enroll in programs.

Prison officials must help, not hurt

The gatekeepers to state institutions are typically wardens, but every staff member down to a correctional officer or a kitchen contractor can hinder facility operations or make things run smoothly. Incorporating a college program into a prison involves a lot of planning that needs support from the top, but also day-to-day support from the guards on the ground.

“We must get the administrations to buy into college inside if we want it to succeed,” said Rahsaan “New York” Thomas, a formerly incarcerated award-winning podcaster who earned his associate degree at San Quentin State Prison.

“I was fortunate,” Rahsaan said. “Not every prison is supportive of college classes, and someone shouldn’t have to hope to end up at a place like San Quentin in order to get an education.”

Rural prisons struggle to provide college-in-person programming

I’ve been in prisons that offer a lot of educational opportunities and those that don’t; the fact is, rural prisons might be the most underserved.

Last year, I had a conversation with Katie Owens-Murphy, an English professor at the University of North Alabama about what it would take to expand access to prison education in her state.

“It’s difficult to find university instructors who have the ability to drive long distances to teach,” said Katie, who also directs Inside-Out classes where North Alabama students come inside the prison to study alongside incarcerated classmates.

With hundreds of prisons sitting outside the convenience of urban areas, thousands of incarcerated people may lose out on college. For example, the University of North Alabama cannot expand into a degree program at this time because of the shortage of faculty; for that reason students won’t be able to take advantage of Pell.

However, some colleges like Auburn University arrange to have prisoners from rural institutions moved to a more central prison to provide in-person programming.

I asked Katie if Zoom could be an alternative to in-person classes, potentially allowing many more incarcerated students to enroll in college and get a degree.

It really depends on the facility, she told me. When North Alabama recently started a program at the women’s prison that’s four hours away, they had to limit the number of participants because it was hard to see and hear everyone on the screen.

And while the bigger issue might be a lack of opportunities in rural prisons, geography can also be a disincentive even when education is available. During our Pell webinar, Angel Sanchez mentioned that people will often forgo education if it means being transferred to a prison far away from their families. “One of the ways we address that is by making the benefit universal — by not putting it in one place but not the other and forcing people to pick,” he said.

The tension between access and profit

One of Open Campus’ publishing partners, The Marshall Project, distributes a print publication, News Inside, in hundreds of prisons, and recently launched a video series, Inside Story. In a article published in January, they explained their decision to publish content on the controversial prison tablets. This is also an issue that colleges and prison ed programs are increasingly grappling with as online education becomes more prevalent.

The tablets, which have always been touted as educational tools, have regularly cost disadvantaged communities a lot of money for additional features such as email, photos, and video messaging.

While the debate about whether to boycott tablets rages among advocates on the outside, the answer is definitive on the inside: 96 percent of people surveyed by the Marshall Project said they wanted information on tablets even if they were provided by for-profit companies.

Having used the personal tablets in a positive way to communicate with my family, take educational courses, and for entertainment purposes, I believe that organizations should not boycott the services. But they should work harder to pressure private companies to establish fair pricing and best practices for incarcerated consumers.

Student loan update

Student-loan borrowers who were previously behind on their payments — or in delinquency — are benefitting from President Joe Biden’s “Fresh Start” plan, according to a quarterly report on household debt and credit by the New York Federal Reserve released in February. Over $34 billion defaulted loans have been brought into good standing, amid the continued repayment pause on student loans, since the “Fresh Start” program was launched in April 2022. Bringing a defaulted loan into good standing allows borrowers to access federal financial aid such as Pell Grants.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two separate cases challenging the Biden Administration’s student debt cancellation program on Feb 28. A decision is expected by the end of June. The debt cancellation program would forgive up to $20,000 per borrower. Student loan payments will be paused at least until the outcome of the court cases.

Write to Open Campus Media, 2460 17th Avenue #1015, Santa Cruz, CA 95062 if you would like to receive our guide on “fresh start” and student debt cancellation for incarcerated borrowers. (Note: student loan cancellation is on hold while waiting for the Supreme Court ruling, but “fresh start” is unrelated to the court proceedings).

Welcome to College Inside, a newsletter about the future of postsecondary education in prisons.

MARCH 13 2023

BY DONOVAN DIEGO

First person: ‘There’s no equality’ for disabled students in prison

The article was co-published with the Prison Journalism Project.

“You find the measure of slope by dividing the change in the two Y points, by the change in the two X points.” I said as I helped a student study for his math exam.

He shook his head. “I’m not going to get this,” he said, discouraged. “This is not making sense.”

This kind of struggle with math is something I see everyday as a GED tutor at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Stillwater.

“Have you ever considered requesting an accommodation?” I asked.

“What’s an accommodation?” was his reply.

This student is one of the many people incarcerated in the Minnesota Department of Corrections who have not only been denied access to extra supports like extended testing time or having text read aloud to them, but also

didn’t even know they might qualify. That’s a serious problem.

The number of incarcerated students who qualify for the help isn’t tracked. But people in state and federal prisons (38%) are about two and a half times more likely to report a disability than adults in the U.S. general population (15%).

About a quarter of the nearly 8,000 people incarcerated in Minnesota were enrolled in education and were eligible to attain their GED as of July 2022. But only 19 requests for GED accommodations had been submitted in the state since 2017, according to the federal Justice Department.

And that’s despite the fact that correctional staff — interviewed by DOJ as part of a four-year civil rights investigation — said the majority of their students may have disabilities. All of those 19 requests came from one teacher at one facility. There are nine other prisons in Minnesota where students received no accommodation at all.

The fact is, as a GED tutor, I don’t know how many of the men I work with would be eligible for accommodation, but I expect the number is much, much higher than the number who actually get the support they need.

In September 2022, the DOJ found that the Minnesota corrections department violated the rights of incarcerated students with disabilities by denying them opportunities to receive GED accommodations. In mid February, Minnesota reached an agreement with the Justice Department that it would revise its policies and procedures, hire an American Disability Act compliance officer and educate incarcerated individuals on the new policies and their rights. The department will also pay over $70,000 in compensatory damages to individuals with disabilities who were denied accommodations.

The Americans with Disabilities Act says that people in prison can’t be excluded from regular programming because of disabilities. While the Justice

Department noted that Minnesota generally allowed qualified individuals with disabilities to enroll or participate in GED programs, it found that the DOC unlawfully denied them an equal opportunity to benefit from the program by failing to provide necessary reasonable accommodations.

Here’s why the GED is so significant in Minnesota: It has become a gatekeeper in the DOC for people to get access to higher paying jobs, learning a trade, and pursuing higher education. It will become even more important later this year as college programs will begin expanding in the facilities with the return of Pell Grants.

However, it doesn’t have to be that way. Official policy allows us to work a job and go to school to attain their GED simultaneously. But in reality, if you apply for a job you’ll probably get denied and referred to education. Nobody is allowing guys to do both. Many people have been trapped in this revolving cycle throughout their incarceration, to the point that they get released without a credential. This contributes to their inability to find a sustainable career upon release, and it may even lead to them returning to prison.

Identifying disabilities

Although I welcome the changes that might come with the Justice Department’s settlement, there’s more that can be done. Many people don’t know what an accommodation is because they don’t know what qualifies as a disability. We could start to address this by educating students on their rights, as well as on disabilities.

Students’ disabilities aren’t being acknowledged and they are forced to continue education on a playing field where they’re at a disadvantage. There’s no equality for people who are feeling discouraged every time they fail a test, and don’t even realize why they’re failing, or that proper assistance is available for them. I often see guys lose hope that they’ll ever earn their GED. By the time this happens, they’ve mentally given up on themselves when in reality, it’s the system that gave up on them.

To be eligible for accommodations on the GED test, a student must provide recent documentation of a diagnosis. Oftentimes, people who might qualify don’t have access to those records in prison. In addition, people sometimes develop disabilities after they are incarcerated. Someone might spend over a year in solitary confinement for a rule violation. Throughout that time, they can develop anxiety, depression, or PTSD. If that disorder hasn’t been documented, they won’t qualify for the modifications.

And, students currently have to rely on teachers to submit the accommodation request, and in some cases, determine if they should receive the extra help. One education director told the Justice Department that she considered people disabled only if they did not have “hands or arms, or are blind or deaf.”

These teachers and administrators aren’t psychologists. We’re in a controlled environment under constant surveillance, which makes it challenging for the teacher to identify if the student is actually displaying symptoms stemming from an intellectual or psychological disability, or is just being “defiant.”

And it can be particularly difficult for students with cognitive disabilities — which includes things like dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — since those things aren’t as obvious. Nationally, about a quarter of state prisoners reported having a cognitive disability, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Accommodations work

Cole DeGroot, a student I tutored, is an example of someone who was successful when he was given the necessary accommodations. He’s one of the few able to receive this kind of assistance on GED tests because he’s had a formal diagnosis and has been in special education since he was a kid. He was allowed more testing time and had his test read aloud to him.

“It helped me out a lot,” he told me. “I have a hard time reading, so it was good to have someone read it to me and give me more time to understand what I’m doing.”

DeGroot is a great example why accommodations are paramount for students with disabilities. His success has motivated him to go further in education and employment — options that would not have been available without secondary education.

Instead of asking someone if they have a disability, staff should consider asking if they’ve ever been diagnosed with ADHD, depression, or anxiety. Asking if someone has a hard time staying focused while reading would also help identify students who might benefit from additional assistance.

Students should also be allowed to request a 504 Plan even if they do not qualify for an individual education plan, according to Eunha Jeong Wood, a former special education teacher and current college professor at the Minnesota Correctional Facility at Stillwater. The plan allows them to receive accommodations without a special education evaluation if they are seeking specific accommodations and have a medical diagnosis.

Another major change Minnesota could make is offering alternatives to the GED program, such as a high school diploma or an adult diploma, at all facilities. Those options allow students to demonstrate their knowledge without a high-pressure test, opening up multiple paths to academic success.

With the settlement agreement in place, we’re expecting to see a significant change in our education department at Stillwater, and hopefully throughout the Minnesota Department of Corrections. My hope is that teachers, administrators, and especially students can not only learn what an accommodation is, but also actually receive them.

Donovan Diego is a tutor in the education department at the Minnesota Correctional Facility at Stillwater. He’s earning a bachelor’s degree in education with a focus in special education at Metro State University.

Welcome to College Inside, a newsletter about the future of postsecondary education in prisons.

MARCH 15 2023

BY CHARLOTTE WEST

It took almost 30 years for Pell Grants to return to prison. But, for many, college is still out of reach.

Students graduate in spring 2022 from the Moreau College Initiative, an academic collaboration between Holy Cross College and the University of Notre Dame, in partnership with the Indiana Department of Correction. They are part of the Second Chance Pell Experiment. (Photo: Peter Ringenberg Photography in South Bend, Indiana)

This story was co-published in USA Today.

Caddell Kivett is ready to go back to college. He sorted out some old, defaulted student loans. He figured out what he wants to study. And he thought he found a new way to pay for his classes. Except Kivett, 52, is in prison.

He’ll be able, in theory, to use a federal Pell Grant to help pay for his education come July. It marks the first time in nearly three decades that incarcerated people — as many as 700,000 of them, according to the Education Department — are broadly eligible for the aid,

and the policy change could open up new college opportunities across the country.

The expansion of Pell Grants has been a long-sought change since the 1994 crime bill eliminated them for people in prison and ended the majority of prison education programs. Although educating people in prison has been shown to have a number of benefits, the new money may be difficult for many to access for a host of reasons.

In Kivett’s case, the only higher ed option at his North Carolina facility is a theology degree. He wants to study journalism after working for the prison newspaper, the Nash News.

And he learned a harsh reality following months of phone calls and letters to colleges that offer accredited, paper-based correspondence courses: The federal aid can be used only at prisons that have Pell-eligible college programs. His doesn’t.

Studies show that prison education increases the chance of someone getting a job after release and decreases the likelihood that they’ll go back to prison. Providing education to those who won’t ever go home has benefits too. Lifers often become mentors to others, helping to create a more positive prison culture.

Pell Grants are the main form of federal financial aid for low-income students, which includes most incarcerated learners, providing a maximum annual award of $7,395.

But Pell funds won’t be enough to suddenly make college available to everyone like Kivett. Basic information gaps need to be filled, college support structures need to be built, and departments of corrections need to sort out their new role in all of this. Congress assigned them the task of approving new prison education programs.

That raises questions about how programs are assessed and who ensures they are actually meeting students’ needs. And it means opportunities will vary widely by state. Right now, incarcerated people in less than a third of state and federal prisons have access to postsecondary education, and much of what is offered doesn’t lead to an academic degree.

Places like California that currently draw on state funds to allow incarcerated students to take community college classes will be using Pell funding to expand bachelor’s programs. Some states will be starting from scratch. Others might not participate at all.

A lot of states, including Washington and Kansas, will be building on programs that were part of the Second Chance Pell Experiment, which offered access to federal aid for some students starting in 2015. By last year, Second Chance Pell was offered at about 200 sites and had awarded federal aid to 30,000 incarcerated students.

All of this is happening as both prisons and colleges are still recovering from the pandemic, correctional agencies across the country are facing staff shortages, and everyone is still waiting on the final word from the Education Department on exactly how it will sign off on new programs. What it all adds up to is this: despite the return of Pell, most incarcerated people still won’t be able to get a college education this fall.

When information is ‘next to nil’

One of the biggest challenges is information. Many potential students are eagerly awaiting the return of Pell — but understanding what that means for them is difficult. Am I eligible? How would I sign up? What strings are attached? And where can I find out more?

There are a lot of basics that people don’t know: Pell can’t be used for graduate school or by people who have already finished a bachelor’s degree, for example, and there’s a lifetime limit of 12 semesters for eligibility.

“People need to be able to make informed choices about Pell dollars. That’s your money as a student, and that’s being used on your behalf,” said Stephanie Gaskill, a fellow at the Jesuit Social Research Institute at Loyola University New Orleans. She assists with the institute’s higher education in prison program and is a member of the Pell Is Not Enough research team at the University of Utah.

“It’s a responsibility for those of us helping to bring programs in to make sure that people are making informed decisions. Those may be limited choices, but people need to have information in order to make those choices for themselves.”

For now, the confusion seems ubiquitous. “The word around here on Pell is next to nil,” said Quadaire Patterson, 34, who is incarcerated in Virginia and runs a website, Brilliance Behind Bars, with the help of his fiancee. “There has not been one whisper of any upcoming higher education programs that will utilize Pell Grant funds.”

Because people know he’s active in criminal justice reform, Patterson is often asked about how they can tap into the federal money. He has to tell them that they can’t just sign up, that there has to be a Pell-eligible program at their prison. “The looks on their faces show so much despair.”

Patterson has paid out of pocket to take a few college classes in social sciences and is now taking a paralegal course with the ultimate goal of becoming a lawyer. “What I’ve learned is that being incarcerated presents a critical, daily ultimatum,” he said. “Will we choose to actively better ourselves or passively ‘do time’?”

Another big barrier is access. In many places the demand for seats way outstrips supply, with waiting lists often running a year or more. Even in places that do have college programs, people might still be excluded because of their sentence or conviction.

The legislation that restored Pell Grants for people in prison removed any federal barriers to eligibility related to how long people’s sentences are or their specific crimes, but states still have broad discretion in who can take classes behind bars. Half of the states impose restrictions on participation in education based on the length of an individual’s sentence, according to the Council of State Governments Justice Center.

When Jevon Jackson, 45, who is incarcerated in Wisconsin, heard that Pell was returning, he thought that would mean “the educational floodgates will open.” He’d been at two facilities

with Second Chance programs, but had been excluded because of his life sentence.

Jackson always loved school as a kid, but he was locked up at the age of 16 and was only able to get his GED. Twenty years ago, he took a few correspondence courses that were paid for by an outside sponsor. Now he wants to study counseling and creative writing. But the return of Pell, it turns out, has not changed much about his chances at college for now.

Pell is first being offered to shorttimers, he said education staff told him. They only will expand opportunities to people with lengthier sentences “when more spots become available.”

The challenges of scaling up

So what, exactly, does it take to get a college program in prison off the ground, how will existing sites scale up, and are colleges actually ready?

One of the biggest issues for increased capacity this fall is the tight timeline. Academic schedules are set months in advance, which ties up faculty, and other partners like accrediting agencies need to sign off.

Colleges have to redesign everything, including financial-aid processes and admissions applications, to operate in an environment that doesn’t often have internet access. Keramet Reiter, for example, had to create a paper-based application for people who wanted to apply to the University of California system’s first bachelor’s degree program for incarcerated students.

Reiter, a criminology professor who directs the program, and another staff member at the Irvine campus took screenshots of the undergraduate application for the University of California, printed them, took them in person to potential students, had them fill them out, and then entered them into the application system. “There’s four application essays, so I typed all 120 of them for our 30 applicants,” she said. “It’s a nightmare.”

Gaskill, the Loyola researcher, said that colleges starting new programs also need to realize that students inside don’t have direct access to the things they would on campus. “As a person who runs a program, you’re a conduit for them to all the resources of the university,” she said.

Many existing programs will have difficulties scaling up because they are often run by a single person, she added, and there can be a cost barrier. Pell coming back is essential for many programs to get off the ground, but it doesn’t always cover the full cost of attendance. Colleges have to be prepared to absorb unexpected costs such as transcript fees and past due balances from students’ previous college experience.

Starting small

Ultimately, only about 2 percent of the state and federal prison population – about 1.3 million people – is projected to participate in higher ed programs this fall, according to estimates by both the Education Department and the Vera Institute, a nonprofit group providing technical assistance to prison education programs.

In the short term, Margaret diZerega, director of Vera’s Unlocking Potential Initiative, says she expects college access to remain relatively restricted, given issues related to staffing shortages, a lack of facility space for classes, and slow adoption of technology. Given that, she says getting even 10 percent of the prison population enrolled in the coming years would be a good goal.

In recent years, changes to federal policies have removed some barriers to federal aid that will help people in prison. The same 2020 legislation that reinstated Pell Grants in prisons also restored eligibility for people with drug convictions and men who had failed to register for the Selective Service. The Education Department has also remedied another big obstacle to accessing Pell – defaulted student loans – with its “fresh start” initiative that was launched in April 2022.

Both corrections officials and educators say that the best approach to broadening college access in prison is slow and steady. Even in states that already have significant experience with prison education, there will be some facilities that have never had higher education and some colleges that have never operated in a prison.

“Sometimes we think that something is better than nothing, and I just don’t know that that’s completely true,” Gaskill said. “Sometimes, especially if you’re asking people to spend their Pell dollars, you want to make sure that what you’re offering is actually a good experience for students.”

Housing support for formerly incarcerated students

When college students get out of prison, they may face a number of practical challenges. For starters: Where are they going to live?

Several California universities are starting to offer supportive housing for formerly incarcerated students through organizations such as Project Rebound, Gail Cornwall reported for The Hechinger Report and The Nation in February.

“Research indicates that only around one-third of California colleges offer any services tailored to formerly incarcerated students, let alone housing, and that 72% of those are community colleges,” Cornwall wrote.

About 70% of people in prison say they would like to receive a college credential, yet only 4% end up graduating from college. Housing insecurity is among the barriers they face.

The more access formerly incarcerated students are given to academic services and supportive housing, the more likely they are to graduate, Cornwall wrote.

– Maddison Hwang, Open Campus editorial assistant