College Inside: Equity and Access to Higher Ed in Jail
Equity and access to higher education are core democratic principles. And yet, in the US, only a small fraction of people will earn a college degree. According to data collected by the Pew Research Center in 2022, less than half of Americans ages 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree. Among currently and formerly incarcerated people, the picture is much bleaker. Just 5% of people who enter prison and jail are college graduates. And formerly incarcerated people are 8 times less likely to finish college than people who have not spent time in jail or prison.
These numbers tell an important story about power and inequality in America. People who are incarcerated are statistically more likely to be marginalized by their race and class. They are also the targets of social policies that reinforce racial and economic inequality and also fortify some of the most basic anti-democratic values on which the system of higher education in America is founded. From the Morrill Act in 1862, that authorized the seizure of upwards of two million square miles of Indigenous lands to found land grant universities like the University of Massachusetts, to the theft of enslaved labor that bankrolled the physical infrastructure of the modern university, and the current “school to prison pipeline” that funnels the most vulnerable young people, disproportionately Black and brown, out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal legal system, it is clear that higher education in America is not about equity and access. It is, instead, a celebration of social stratification, settler-colonial violence, and racial and gender injustice.
The UMass Prison Education Initiative (PEI) does not make this history of injustice disappear. Access to higher education in the US, including college programming in prison and jail, is not a remedy for the violence that is baked into the system itself. But, by offering tuition-free, for credit UMass courses to people inside local jails, the PEI reduces the harm of entrenched social and educational policies that continue to disadvantage and dispossess the most vulnerable among us.
We are seeing a hopeful uptick in support for college in prison programming on the federal level. In 2023, eligibility for federal financial aid (Pell Grants) for incarcerated people will be restored after having been rescinded almost 30 years ago under the 1994 Clinton Crime Bill. On the state level, in places like Connecticut, California, and New York, private and state-run college-in-prison programs enroll thousands of students who are pursuing a degree while in prison. In Massachusetts, the number of people in prison who are served by college programming is significantly smaller – according to a Boston Foundation report, there are currently only 213 incarcerated people enrolled in certificate and BA pathways across six DOC facilities. In contrast, over 1400 incarcerated people participate in similar programming in New York State, for example. But college-in-prison programs operating out of Boston College, Boston University, Emerson College, Tufts University and Mount Wachusett Community College are poised and hopeful about the future of higher education in prison, especially with a new governor in office. And directly impacted people are organizing from the inside to put pressure on the State House to increase support for higher education in prison. In their 2023 briefing on the MA DOC, presented to Governor Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, a coalition of currently incarcerated people renew the call for the right to access higher education in prison.
And yet, there are no college-in-prison programs here in Western MA. This is because there are no prisons in our corner of the state, only jails, in which most people who are behind bars have not been sentenced for any crime. Many remain in jail, pre-trial, because they do not have the resources to pay their bail and buy their freedom.
In 2020, pandemic-related court delays exacerbated this brand of “pre-trial injustice,” lengthening the period of time that unsentenced people remained locked up in jail. These delays put people at even greater risk of losing their jobs, losing custody of their children, damaging their physical and mental health, increasing the risk of suicide and homelessness, and disrupting their education.
Like each one of these serious (and sometimes deadly) economic, physical, and psychological harms, disruptions to education can have a devastating impact on people’s present and future life. Studies have shown that people whose education has been interrupted by time in jail or prison “rarely get the chance to make up for the educational opportunities from which they’ve been excluded — opportunities that impact their chances of reentry success.” The preference for incarceration over education, as measured by the dramatic increase, across the globe, in investment in new or expanding prison and jail facilities, and the defunding and privatization of public higher education in the US along with the explosion of student debt, has serious economic and human consequences, especially for Black and brown people.
College-in-prison programming creates invaluable opportunities for people to continue (or in many cases to begin) their post-secondary education while incarcerated. But for people in jail, the opportunities to enroll in college courses are relatively scarce. In part, this is due to the challenges posed by shorter but more frequent periods of incarceration (sometimes referred to as “jail churn”), that make traditional college programming, organized by a 15-17 week semester tricky. And yet, the sheer number of people whose lives are impacted by time in jail obligates us to reimagine what college and other educational opportunities might look like for people in jail. It also calls on us to develop more flexible inside-outside and virtual supports for incarcerated students that are not limited by the traditional semester and demands that we focus our attention on more creative ways to support formerly incarcerated students who want to continue their education, but who are no longer living and studying behind bars. People go to jail over 10 million times each year (in contrast, approximately 600,000 people enter prison annually). More than 1 in 4 people are jailed multiple times. The attempt to interrupt the “churn” and to create the conditions, including the pursuit of a college education, in which people may thrive once they return to their communities on the outside, is core part of the PEI mission. In Massachusetts, the PEI plays a unique role in the landscape of higher education because we are committed to serving people in jail, a student population that is commonly underserved by college-in-prison programming.
The work of the PEI is also focused on clearing pathways for formerly incarcerated students to continue their education at UMass or in a community college setting and offers internships and paid opportunities for formerly incarcerated students to gain work experience and to contribute to the work of the PEI. The Initiative provides research, teaching, and community engagement opportunities for faculty and students who are interested in social justice and education, and partners with the Petey Green Program to train UMass students to provide academic support to people who are pursuing a college degree or high school equivalency diploma (GED or HiSET) while incarcerated.
Importantly, according to a 2022 Boston Globe article, of the “5,431 individuals in DOC facilities at the time, 843 were enrolled in educational programs, some with multiple enrollments in college courses, others in vocational programs. But another 3,170 individuals were on wait-lists for those programs.” Although similar data doesn’t exist for county jails (which are controlled by elected Sheriffs), the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department reported that 55% of males released in 2018 did not have a diploma or HiSET. If this isn’t rectified, then fewer people will be able to take advantage of initiatives like PEI or the partnerships that exist in jails like Franklin County with local community colleges.
To learn more about the PEI and to support equity and access to higher education, please go to: minutefund.umass.edu/pei.
