Obama Administration Could Expand Pell Grant Eligibility to Prisoners

WASHINGTON-The Obama administration’s plan to restore funding for in-prison college programs won praise from inmate advocates Tuesday, alongside allegations that officials are ignoring the will of Congress and eschewing the needs of law-abiding students.

Designed for low-income students, Pell Grants do not have to be repaid. The maximum award for the 2015-2016 school year is $5,775.

State and federal prisoners received $34 million in Pell grants in 1993, the year before the ban took effect.

In order to test out implementing the grants, administration officials are using a provision under the Higher Education Act that allows the Education Department to temporarily lift the Pell grant ban for experimentation purposes.

Rep. John Kline, a Minnesota Republican and the chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said in a statement that he is concerned about the White House’s decision to go around Congress to test the program on a trial basis.

The move could come as early as this week since Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Attorney General Loretta Lynch are scheduled to visit Goucher College’s Prison Education Partnership at the Maryland Correctional Institution on Friday to make “an important announcement related to federal aid”, reports Politico.

Department spokeswoman Dorie Nolt declined to disclose any specifics on the length of the program, which prisoners would be eligible and how it would work.

Name SearchWatch Service’>Ted Mitchell called Pell grants “one of the key levers that we have” to increase the college completion rate.

A 2013 study from the RAND Corporation found that prisoners who take education courses are 43 percent less likely to return to prison within three years than those who did not participate in programs.

Reps. Donna Edwards, D-Md., and Danny Davis, D-Ill., introduced legislation in May that would reinstate Pell Grant eligibility for federal and state prisoners.