A Toolkit for Helping Incarcerated Students Complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid
In 2015, the U.S. Department of Education announced the Second Chance Pell (SCP) experiment under the Experimental Sites Initiative, which allows incarcerated students who would be eligible for Pell Grants—a form of federal financial aid—if they were not incarcerated to access them while attending an eligible academic program offered by one of the ...
Economic and Fiscal Benefits of Postsecondary Education in Prison
Efforts to build robust postsecondary education programs in prison have accelerated in recent years, with support from a broad range of groups from correctional officers to college administrators. This report, which is the result of a collaborative effort with the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality, describes how lifting the current ban on ...
Developing Quality Postsecondary Education Programs in Prison
With its July 2015 announcement of the Second Chance Pell Pilot Program, the U.S. Department of Education ushered in what could be a new era of expanded opportunities for postsecondary education in our nation’s prisons. The Second Chance Pell Pilot makes students incarcerated in state and federal prisons eligible for need-based financial aid in a l ...
Starting a Postsecondary Education Program in Prison
In April 2020, the U.S. Department of Education expanded the Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative, adding 67 new higher education institutions to the program’s already operating 63 colleges offering postsecondary education programs in prison. Starting a college program in prison is a significant undertaking that will profoundly affect t ...
Series: Target 2020
These battleground state voters seem to understand that reinstating Pell eligibility for the greatest number of people in prison is a sound investment in our future. Plenty of other influential voices agree. Bipartisan momentum to get rid of the Pell ban for people in prison has been growing steadily: Since early 2019, the Association of State Cor ...
Series: Unlocking Potential
Twenty-eight years ago, I was sentenced to life without parole and began serving time in California. Around that same time, after the 1994 Crime Bill was enacted—ending Pell Grant eligibility for incarcerated students—I saw cuts to all kinds of programs, including educational ones. Going to school and getting a college degree seemed out of the ques ...
An Evaluation of Student Support During and After Incarceration
California is a national leader in providing higher education to justice-involved people. A key driver of this movement has been the Renewing Communities initiative, a joint project of the Opportunity Institute and the Stanford Criminal Justice Center that sought to expand access to higher education among justice-involved people in California, both ...
This means that students participating in Second Chance Pell programs are learning the skills necessary to play all types of roles in their communities when they return home. For example, Milwaukee Area Technical College is offering career-specific training in areas like welding. Glenville State College in West Virginia offers an array of programs, ...
A Snapshot of the First Three Years
The Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative, launched by the U.S. Department of Education in 2015, provides need-based Pell Grants to people in state and federal prisons. Second Chance Pell has active partnerships with 64 colleges that teach in 28 states. The schools were selected in June 2016 for the initiative, which examines whether exp ...
Teachers and students are on the front lines of some of our justice system’s toughest issues—shootings in schools, immigration enforcement, disproportionate disciplining and policing of youth of color, and untreated trauma from being a witness to violence. Yet despite a vibrant bipartisan movement for justice reform in this country, teachers and st ...
A Vision for Change
These battleground state voters seem to understand that reinstating Pell eligibility for the greatest number of people in prison is a sound investment in our future. Plenty of other influential voices agree. Bipartisan momentum to get rid of the Pell ban for people in prison has been growing steadily: Since early 2019, the Association of State Co ...
The United States makes up just 5 percent of the global population but is home to 20 percent of the world’s incarcerated people. More than 95 percent of the 1.5 million people in U.S. prisons will eventually be released, regardless of whether they are ready to secure a job. Thanks to evidence-based reforms, the country’s justice systems have made m ...
The Next 25 Years
Marking the 25th anniversary of the federal 1994 Crime Bill, this video offers a consideration of the visionary work, big ideas, and fundamental values that can guide the next 25 years of justice policy.
State Financial Aid for Incarcerated Students
Postsecondary education in prison puts people on a path toward a brighter future by disrupting the cycle of poverty and incarceration. But it has not been offered at scale due to the numerous barriers—including the 1994 ban on Pell Grants to people in prison—that prevent students and postsecondary institutions from accessing state and federal fundi ...