The Obama administration’s unveiling of a pilot program to make some prisoners eligible for Pell Grants has been long awaited by advocates who have worked to bring higher education into prisons over the past two decades. But many are still waiting for details about what the program will look like and what it will mean for their broader efforts nationwide.
The pilot program was formally announced on Friday here at the Maryland Correctional Institution-Jessup by the secretary of education, Arne Duncan, and the attorney general, Loretta Lynch. Mr. Duncan and Ms. Lynch, who were joined by other administration officials and members of Congress, spoke with students enrolled in the Goucher Prison Education Partnership, a program that offers inmates at two prisons in Maryland for-credit courses through Goucher College.
Under the pilot program, a small but still unknown number of colleges will work with prisons to offer eligible inmates Pell Grants, even though a law, passed by Congress in 1994, has barred state and federal inmates from receiving that aid. Priority will be given to prisoners who are likely to be released within five years. Colleges will have until September to apply to be part of the experiment.
The Chronicle asked several education experts who work with inmates for their initial thoughts on the experimental program.
Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/article/What-the-Experts-Say-About/232101