From: https://www.highereddive.com
From tough-on-crime to Second Chance Pell
The sweeping 1994 crime bill banned incarcerated people from obtaining Pell Grants. In 2015, the Obama administration launched the Second Chance Pell program, which former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos expanded last spring.
Students earned more than 4,500 degrees and certificates through the program as of 2019, said Margaret diZerega, the director of the Vera Institute of Justice’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections. The 2020 expansion more than doubled the number of participating colleges to 130 schools across 42 states and the District of Columbia. The latest legislation significantly expands its scope. The Vera Institute has estimated that nearly half a million incarcerated people would be eligible for Pell Grants if the ban was lifted.
While that’s only about a fifth of the U.S. incarcerated population, advocates hope the change will give Second Chance Pell staying power.
The legislative expansion was a relief to Chris Agans, a Rutgers University employee who oversees the administration of New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons (NJ-STEP), an association of New Jersey higher education institutions that help incarcerated people access college classes.
Through NJ-STEP, students earn degrees from Rutgers or Raritan Valley Community College, which are among the department’s experimental sites for Second Chance Pell. Other universities contribute courses or faculty. NJ-STEP was founded in 2012 and initially used private and university funding to help people in prison afford and access education. Since then, Agans said, more than 250 students have earned associate degrees and 48 have earned bachelor’s while incarcerated. More than 100 earned a bachelor’s after their release and 16 went on to earn a master’s degree.
“The permanency of Second Chance Pell is a tremendous boon to existing programs who have been living in this year-to-year attempt at creating budgets,” he said, noting that it can allow for investments in infrastructure that could make these programs feel more connected to their schools.
‘Running a college in someone else’s house’
Even with more federal support, there are significant hurdles to increasing college access among incarcerated students. Some of these were pointed out in a 2019 Congressional report evaluating a potential expansion, which also bemoaned the “little research on the best way to deliver postsecondary education in prisons.”
For one, only about two-thirds of incarcerated people have a high school diploma or its equivalent, the Vera Institute notes, a prerequisite for college classes. Even then, correctional systems and facilities may have additional rules. In New Jersey, for instance, students in solitary confinement can’t participate, Agans said.
Other factors that could disqualify potential students include having previously defaulted on student loans and being unable to gather the necessary documentation to apply for financial aid.
The correctional facilities themselves are often a barrier. “Pretty much every room in the prison is the wrong space,” Agans said. “They’re built for security.”
Modern colleges assume students can be self-directed — logging into their school emails, connecting with advisers, and mastering the library and assignment submissions systems. In prison, Agans said, students often can only use notepads, and getting their work into the school’s computer system can take hours and introduce human error.
Agans said running these programs can get expensive, and he keeps his budget in line by keeping costs down and recycling materials. Some programs, he said, have figured out how to make money by compromising quality, using distance learning or relying on volunteers. But, he added, “it seems the overwhelming majority of directors I talk to are in the hole.”
By Joy Resmovits