Persistent Barriers
William Freeman III was one of the lucky ones. He served more than 20 years in prison. After his eighth year at the Maryland Correctional Training Center, in Hagerstown, Md., he approached a warden about getting involved in a higher-education program for incarcerated students. There, he was able to get vocational training working on cars.
He then transferred to the Maryland Correctional Institute, in Jessup, Md., where he was able to take courses at Goucher College, and, upon his release, he received a full scholarship to pursue his degree there.
But Freeman says that his story is not typical for most incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students.
There are almost 2 million people in jails, prisons, and detention centers, according to estimates by the Prison Policy Initiative, and they are disproportionately people of color. About 13 percent of the U.S. population is Black, yet Black people make up nearly 40 percent of the prison population. Black Americans are incarcerated at nearly five times the rate of their white counterparts, and members of the Latino community are 1.3 times as likely to be incarcerated, according to a study from The Sentencing Project.
A 2018 study by the Rand Corporation found that individuals who participated in correctional-education programs were 28 percent less likely to return to custody. Despite the advantages of education, in most states it’s particularly difficult for both incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals to access these opportunities. Researchers at the Education Trust say this has a disproportionate effect on students of color in the criminal-justice system.
“Many of the problems we see in higher education broadly around racial equity do exist in higher education in prison programs,” said Kayla Elliott, the director of higher-education policy. She added that the same Black and Latino students who are overrepresented in prisons are underrepresented in their higher-education programs.
Barriers like lack of internet access, incongruences between state policies and prison implementation, and lack of affordability are just a few things in between incarcerated students and higher education.
In December 2020, Congress lifted a 26-year-long ban on Pell Grants for incarcerated students, which means that these students will soon have access to more resources and more of them will be able to afford a college education. But while the return of the Pell Grant could spur advancements in programs for incarcerated students, Education Trust researchers worry that these issues may still prevent incarcerated students from going to college.
The researchers found that for those students, access to education largely depends on where they live. Led by a cohort of eight formerly incarcerated fellows, including Freeman, the Education Trust, in partnership with local higher-education and justice advocates, analyzed state support for currently and formerly incarcerated students in eight states to develop toolkits to help advocates and policy makers tear down the remaining barriers. Here are three of the most common ones.
Lack of Access to State-Funded Financial Aid
Even though incarcerated students will soon have access to Pell Grants, they may need additional funds to cover the cost of college. But every state has different rules about who qualifies for financial aid in their institutions.
In some states, it’s complicated. Often, incarcerated students are kept out of state-level financial aid and are barred from applying until they are released. In Ohio, for example, currently incarcerated people do not have access to any state financial aid. Once students are released, however, they may apply for the Ohio College Opportunity Grant, the state’s largest government-funded financial-aid program.
In California, on the other hand, incarcerated students can apply for the California College Promise Grant, which is available to all income-eligible students in community college. In a webinar for the project, Elliott said that students in California prisons are encouraged to use money from this grant so that, once the Pell Grant is available, they can access financial aid that way upon their release.
Trouble Getting Identification After Release
In some states, formerly incarcerated students have difficulty obtaining identification documents like birth certificates, driver’s licenses, and Social Security cards, which can slow down or even stop the college-application process. States like California and Ohio do not have a streamlined process that assist incarcerated students in obtaining a state ID or a driver’s license.
For individuals who don’t have those documents upon release, the first 30 days are crucial, says Freeman.
“I meet with men and women regularly who are making decisions in those 30 days in tears,” Freeman said. “They don’t want to break the law, but they don’t have an ability to get back into society with the things they need.”
In states like Texas, however, state identification cards are issued to incarcerated people before they are released, making it much simpler for students to complete college applications.
Disclosing Criminal History
In some states, like Ohio, Texas and Michigan, there is no rule that bans colleges from asking about criminal history on admissions applications or denying admission based on the answer. States like Louisiana largely prohibit all public universities from asking criminal legal-history questions on their initial application forms. Similarly, the State University of New York voted to remove all criminal-history questions in 2016.
The Center for Community Alternatives found that almost every two out of three applicants who disclosed a felony conviction were discouraged from pursuing higher education. It wasn’t because they weren’t qualified, but because the presence of the “box” kept them from continuing their application.
“Having the box in and of itself has a chilling effect,” said Jarrod Wall, an Education Trust justice fellow, in a webinar.
Most states don’t remove that barrier on their own. Rather, it’s often spurred by student activism. Oftentimes, formerly incarcerated students had to advocate for their state’s “ban the box” policies. —Oyin Adedoyin
