By July of 2023, it is estimated that close to 760,000 incarcerated people will be able to access a source of financial aid for college education that has been denied for almost three decades. This change is through the passing of the FAFSA Simplification Act in August of 2022, which addresses numerous changes to the federal aid programs provided for postsecondary education within the United States. The act includes changes such as replacing the Expected Family Contribution with a Student Aid Index that removes the number of family members in college from the calculation; streamlining the FAFSA form by removing questions about Selective Service registration and drug convictions while adding questions of applicants’ sex, race, and ethnicity; and expanding access to Federal Pell Grants - the largest college financial aid grant program in America. With the expansion of Federal Pell Grants, the act reinstates the ability for incarcerated students in federal and state penal facilities to receive the grants, a right that has been denied since 1994.
Pell Grants are a form of aid given to students displaying exceptional financial need. The application process is free of charge and as they are a grant, not a loan, they do not have to be repaid (with exceptions of withdrawing from courses or changing enrollment). While they have been utilized for decades as a form of student aid, they face criticism for the strict maximum limits for the awards ($6,895 for 2022-23), and for their eligibility requirements disqualifying incarcerated individuals.
Access to education is a vital opportunity for incarcerated individuals - not only for helping to provide opportunities for a better future outside of prison, but for maintaining dignity while in prison. In the words of Dorain Grogan, a student within Georgetown University’s Prison Scholars Program, “Programs like this humanize us. We often forget we’re human. There’s good within me and others that we can still grasp.” Providing post secondary education has also been shown to reduce violence within prisons, allow for better opportunities to secure well-paying jobs once they return home, and people who participate in these programs have 48% lower odds of returning to prison than those who do not.
While this act will allow incarcerated students to legally attend schools after receiving Pell Grants, there is still work to be done for universities to be able to accept the new students. Higher education institutions need to:
1) Create or adapt existing programs to meet the requirements of new prison education programs (PEPs). This includes not offering education programmed for a specific occupation that typically prohibits formerly incarcerated individuals as well as disclosing legal barriers to students.
2) Seek approval from their institutional or state approval agencies to offer programs at external sites to their main campus and have the PEP programs approved.
3) Receive approval from the entity that oversees the facility where the program will be offered (for example, if in a prison from the Federal Bureau of Prisons).
4) Apply and receive approval from the Education Department.
Within DC, Georgetown University has offered the Prison Scholars Program since 2018 - a “year-round education program that offers three credit-bearing courses per semester plus a weekly guest lecture series. Students take classes in a variety of liberal arts topics through the Georgetown College of Arts & Sciences while they await trial, serve short sentences, or prepare to return to their communities after a longer period of incarceration in the federal prison system.” Georgetown is currently the only school in the DC area registered as a Second Chance Pell site (an initiative launched in 2015 by the Department of Education to see if greater financial aid increased incarcerated peoples participation in postsecondary education). Such sites are currently numbered at about 130 colleges and universities in 42 states, and the number is predicted to grow to 48 states and over 200 schools by 2023.
American University is not registered as a Second Chance Pell site and has not yet released any statement or information about creating PEPs.
More information on Prison Education Programs can be found here.
Lovely article - incredibly informative and insightful.