Obama to extend college aid grants to some prison inmates

But by the time he was released from his Maryland prison, he had 28 credits at Goucher College, a selective liberal arts college in Baltimore, thanks to an innovative program that lets inmates take classes like any other student.

On Friday, Martin joined Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Attorney General Loretta Lynch at Maryland Correctional Institute-Jessup here as the two unveiled the Obama Administration’s latest effort to double down on that investment: A pilot program that will allow a group of prisoners to use federal Pell Grants to fund their education behind bars.

The Higher Education Act, he said, prohibits prisoners from receiving Pell Grants. When Congress first voted to bar prisoners from receiving Pell Grants in 1994, supporters of the ban argued that offenders shouldn’t be getting access to federal dollars for college at the expense of law-abiding students.

In 1992, amendments to the Higher Education Act banned Pell grants for prisoners serving a life sentence or sentenced to death.

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is head of the judiciary committee.

“I’m trying to change and set a better example”, he told Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and a rapt circle of politicians.

Though it may be a worthwhile idea, Senate Education Committee Chair Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said the Obama administration does not have the authority to lift this ban without the approval of Congress.

Education Department Undersecretary Ted Mitchell this week called Pell grants “one of the key levers that we have” to increase the college completion rate.

Steven DeCaroli, a philosophy professor at Goucher who has taught philosophy and political science courses in the prisons, says he sees the program as an attempt to right the wrongs of our broader education system. Following the ban, the number of prison higher education programs dropped precipitously “almost overnight”, said Julie Ajinkya, the director of applied research at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a non-profit focused on increasing access to higher education.

As the end of his presidency draws closer, President Barack Obama has taken on criminal justice reform more aggressively, taking executive action as well as pushing for new legislation.

In a new program aimed at helping more prison inmates earn college degrees, prisoners could use popular Pell Grants to help pick up the tab. A major 2013 study from the RAND corporation found inmates who participated in any education while behind bars were 43 percent less likely to return to prison within three years.

Duncan said the cost would be minimal – “budget dust”, he called it – but he did not provide a figure. More than 8 million students receive aid through the grants, and the government has funded the program with about $30 billion annually. The prison has a partnership with nearby Goucher College. The maximum award for the 2015-2016 school year is $5,775.The administrations plans were first reported by Politico and The Wall Street Journal.

On Friday, Duncan will visit Goucher College’s Prison Education Partnership. Wesleyan University in Connecticut and Grinnell College in Iowa also are part of the consortium. Prison education and training is truly a win-win-boosting formerly incarcerated individuals’ employment rates upon release, substantially decreasing recidivism, and yielding tremendous cost savings in reduced incarceration.