Introduction

Over the past 40 years, the prison population in the United States has ballooned, with one in every 100 American adults currently incarcerated, equating to 2.3 million people behind bars.¹ While approximately 700,000 individuals are released yearly from federal and state prisons, most leave without the necessary education and job skills to obtain employment upon reentry.² According to the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC), almost 60 percent of those released from prison are within the prime working-age population of 18 to 39 but are unemployed. ³ Without providing access to effective correctional rehabilitative programming to equip individuals with the necessary skills to actively participate in the labor market, the reentry process to obtain employment for returning citizens will continue to be an endless pursuit.

Research shows the importance of postsecondary education to successful reentry and labor market success for justice-involved individuals.⁴ However, opportunities to pursue postsecondary education in federal and state prisons are limited. While facilities typically provide programming for the most basic educational levels, General Educational Development (GED) and Adult Basic Education (ABE), traditional college courses are few and far between, with the costs largely falling to incarcerated individuals. The meager earnings from federal and some state prison jobs range from $0.12 to $1.15 per hour, which typically shifts the burden of the cost of college to incarcerated students’ family members.⁵ In the words of one formerly incarcerated student we spoke with, “I paid for all of the degrees I received [during incarceration] but I had family support and not everyone has that.”

In today’s economy, the pathway to stable, financially secure jobs require some sort of education beyond high school. By 2025, approximately 60 percent of the nation’s new jobs will require some level of postsecondary education.⁶ Unfortunately, many U.S. correctional facilities have moved away from providing postsecondary education due to financial constraints, which leaves many justice-involved individuals ill-prepared to successfully integrate back into society.⁷ As one currently incarcerated student we spoke with confirmed, “getting my degree helps a lot. Just having a prison job isn’t enough.”

Formerly incarcerated adults encounter a plethora of challenges, including but not limited to reuniting with family, finding housing, gaining employment, obtaining public benefits, losing the right to exercise privileges of citizenship, managing the stigma of being an ex-offender, and facing other personal issues such as depression or substance abuse.⁸ Finding living-wage employment is especially challenging. The label of previous incarceration follows individuals long after release, making it a challenge to reintegrate. In addition, moving from an environment where one makes very few decisions to an environment where one is responsible for making all daily decisions makes it extremely difficult to reintegrate.⁹

Unfortunately, the success rate for reentry is relatively low.¹⁰ The low success rate can partially be attributed to the fact that the majority of spending on corrections is directed to detainment, with fewer resources directed to help individuals when they are released.¹¹ If the narrative of prisons do not shift from being a holding institution to a rehabilitative institution, incarcerated adults will continue to be released into society ill-equipped for life beyond bars.

“Postsecondary educational enrollments are low because correctional facilities were built to hold people; they were not intended for classroom space to educate people.”

—federal correctional administrator, May 2019