Current Landscape of Higher Education & Job Training in Prison

Currently, there is no comprehensive understanding about postsecondary education within U.S. prisons. This is partly due to the dynamic nature of college-in-prison programs and the absence of standardization for implementing correctional college programs. The most recent attempt to document the number of in-prison credit-bearing postsecondary education programs offered by a college or university was conducted by Erin Castro and colleagues in 2018. Their analysis found that a little more than one-third of college-in-prison programs are located in the West, with the remaining programs evenly distributed among the other three regions in the country. They also found that only 4 percent (202) of nearly 5,000 degree-granting institutions within the country provided credit-bearing college courses to at least one U.S. prison. Over half (55 percent) of the existing programs were offered by public two-year colleges.¹

Policymakers have become increasingly interested in college access for incarcerated populations. In 2016, the Obama administration reignited the idea of college-in-prison programs with the launch of the Second Chance Pell pilot by selecting 69 U.S. colleges and universities to provide a college education to incarcerated adults through use of the Pell Grant.² Defined by the pilot program, these experiments were created “to test whether participation in high quality education programs increases after expanding access to financial aid for incarcerated individuals,” with a “goal of helping them get jobs and support their families when they are released.” Under the direction of the U.S. Department of Education, the experiment has been extended for an additional fourth year, for the current 2019–2020 academic year.³ With increased bipartisan support of Second Chance Pell, the likelihood of a legislative solution is growing, with bipartisan legislation recently introduced in both the House and Senate.⁴

Despite the ban on federal funding and restricted state funding for college programs in correctional facilities, there are college-in-prison programs across the country, about 202 credit-bearing programs as documented by Castro and colleagues. However, there is a wide variation in the type of postsecondary education provided to incarcerated populations. Postsecondary education opportunities may be vocational programming or apprenticeships that could lead to industry-recognized credentials; some others may include credit-bearing courses that lead to a formal degree. Results from the 2013 RAND survey found that 32 states reported that they offered some form of postsecondary education within prisons. These programs include access to college correspondence courses, college-in-prison programs, or online courses. However, many states only fund vocational programs or apprenticeships, with no opportunities to earn an associate degree or beyond.⁵

Due to the limited access to earn a formal postsecondary degree while incarcerated, many students turn to correspondence education. However, incarcerated students are responsible for paying the costs, and some have raised concerns about the quality of the education.⁶

“I was taking correspondence classes before and it was just a memory test and I would just forget everything I memorized after I took the test. But with this program [college-in-prison program], I get to interact with teachers and my peers.”

—currently incarcerated student, July 2019

Although correspondence education is an option to access and even go beyond the associate degree for many incarcerated individuals, the programs are not always of high quality or accredited. Correspondence education typically relies on a paper-based curriculum where the school will mail students lessons and students complete course exams from prison.⁷ However, the qualitative field work we collected for the enclosed report found that when we asked over 50 incarcerated students about their preference for either correspondence or in-person modalities, an overwhelming majority preferred in-person college instruction. One currently incarcerated student we spoke with noted:

“Why do correspondence education when every other aspect of our lives is correspondence? We do correspondence with our family and everyone else. I’d rather a teacher come in and take interest in us because it changes our outlook.”

Aside from the Second Chance Pell experiment, incarcerated adults who aspire to pursue higher education are limited to very few options other than paying out of pocket for correspondence courses or being one of the lucky few to be housed in a prison with a privately funded college program (from foundations or donations, state funding, and/or college funds).⁸ Furthermore, the availability of postsecondary education programs varies between federal and state prisons, as well as within a given state’s prison system based on proximity to educational providers and other factors.

“The amount of programming we have here is an anomaly. Not every state prison has this [college] program. If you visit other prisons in the state, it looks very different.”

—currently incarcerated student, July 2019

Across states, there is variation in state financing programs to fund postsecondary education in prisons. For example, the state of California enables community colleges to provide in-person credit and non-credit courses in both prisons and jails at no expense to incarcerated students. North Carolina allocates state appropriations towards funding credit-bearing programs in prisons, but limits institutions to programs that result in an associate of applied science (AAS) degree.⁹ And many states fund only vocational programs¹⁰ with federal funding as a result of the 1994 crime bill, which withdrew Pell Grant eligibility but continued to fund correctional job training programs.¹¹ A federal corrections administrator we spoke with confirmed this paradox, noting that “there is resistance in political will to provide traditional higher education to incarcerated individuals. However, the political will is more so willing to give them an opportunity to take up a trade and become a mechanic as opposed to a lawyer or sociologist.”

For students, practitioners, and government constituents, there are concerns that an associate degree is becoming the final destination in correctional postsecondary education, referred to by currently incarcerated students we spoke with as a glass ceiling.

“From my perspective, it’s furthering my education past an associates… The negative part is that it’s a “glass ceiling” in the education program. I can’t obtain a bachelor’s degree. That’s the reason I have three associates. That’s the biggest negative about this program.”

—currently incarcerated student, June 2019

Our prison site visits revealed that there is a vast difference in the implementation of correctional job training programs between prisons. Some of the job training programs are affiliated with external vocational education providers and others function as part of the correctional programming. While some correctional job training programs follow the vocational curricula of a community college or trade school, other facilities do not measure comparable learning outcomes or hold programs accountable for their results.

Due to the lack of a standard understanding of correctional job training across federal and state prisons, it is difficult to evaluate its effectiveness on incarcerated populations. Nonetheless a study by RAND (2013) found that participating in vocational/job training programs while incarcerated increased the odds of post-release employment by 28 percent.¹² Additional research shows employment after release is 13 percent higher for individuals who participated in either academic or job training programs while incarcerated.¹³

In spite of the benefits of postsecondary education and job training for incarcerated populations, the majority of those who are released into society are more likely to not have participated in either type of program during incarceration.¹⁴

However, across the U.S., states, higher education institutions, and communities are now reimagining the traditional boundaries to higher education for incarcerated adults and rethinking innovative ways to expand access. These conversations include questions like: How do we better prepare individuals for reentry? What educational opportunities do they need? And how do we keep the educational continuum advancing post-release?¹⁵ These questions are important because the majority of incarcerated adults will be released back into the community and will need skills to successfully transition.