The U.S. Department of Education is poised to announce a limited exemption to the federal ban on prisoners receiving Pell Grants to attend college while they are incarcerated.
Correctional education experts and other sources said they expect the department to issue a waiver under the experimental sites program, which allows the feds to lift certain rules that govern aid programs in the spirit of experimentation. If the project is successful, it would add tomomentum for the U.S. Congress to consider overturning the ban it passed on the use of Pell for prisoners in 1994.
"The idea is under consideration," a department spokesperson said.
Sources said the Obama administration backs the experiment, and that it would be unveiled this summer.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/05/20/obama-administration-may-soon-announce-experimental-access-pell-grants-incarcerated