Thousands of prisoners in the U.S. get their college degrees behind bars, most of them paid for by the federal Pell Grant program. That program is about to expand exponentially next month.
A card celebrating Jamal Lewis's graduation is seen in his cell at Folsom State Prison in Folsom, Calif., Thursday, May 25, 2023. Lewis earned his bachelor's degree in communications through the Transforming Outcomes Project at Sacramento State. The graduates lined up, brushing off their gowns and adjusting classmates’ tassels and stoles. As the graduation march played, the 85 men appeared to hoots and cheers from their families.
Gerald Massey, one of 11 Folsom students graduating with a degree from the California State University at Sacramento, has served nine years of a 15-to-life sentence for a drunken driving incident that killed his close friend. That doesn’t mean it’s always popular. Using taxpayer money to give college aid to people who’ve broken the law can be controversial. When the Obama administration offered a limited number of Pell Grants to prisoners through executive action in 2015, some prominent Republicans opposed it, arguing in favor of improving the existing federal job training and re-entry programs instead.
have been running, like the one at Folsom. Now, the floodgates will open, allowing any college that wants to utilize Pell Grant funding to serve incarcerated students to apply and, if approved, launch their program.has strongly supported giving Pell Grants to prisoners in recent years. It’s a turnaround – the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, championed by the former Delaware senator, was what barred prisoners from getting Pell Grants in the first place.
In primary school, he was a target for bullies. As a teen, he remembered seeking acceptance from the wrong people. When he completed high school, Massey joined the Air Force. In between haircuts for correctional officers and other prison staff, Massey took advantage of his access to WiFi connection to study, take tests and work on assignments. Internet service doesn’t reach the prisoners’ housing units.
“There’s so many different facets and things that can happen when you’re incarcerated, but this kept him focused on his goals,” Massey’s wife Jacq’lene said. “Having the resources and the ability to participate in programs like that really helped him, but it actually helps us, too.” Racial imbalances in prison college enrollment and completion rates are also a growing concern for advocates. People of color make up a disproportionate segment of the U.S. prison population. Yet white students were enrolled in college programs at a percentage higher than their portion of the overall prison population, according to a six-year Vera Institute of Justice study of Pell Grant experimental programs in prison.
“For America to be a country of second chances, we must uphold education’s promise of a better life for people who’ve been impacted by the criminal justice system,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a written statement to the AP.
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