By Eric Westervelt
NPR
The Obama administration is taking a small step toward expanding adult prisoners’ access to federal Pell grants. The money would help pay for college-level classes behind bars.
Federal and state prisoners have been ineligible for the grants since Congress banned the practice two decades ago. But the Education and Justice Departments will announce a limited pilot program that gets around the ban — at least on a temporary, experimental basis.
The goal is to test the effectiveness of higher education programs for a U.S. prison population that has grown dramatically — by nearly 50 percent since the initial ban. Today, America’s state and federal prisons hold some 1.6 million people.
There’s strong evidence that a range of prison education programs help reduce recidivism and improve a prisoner’s chances of thriving once released. To help unpack the research, I reached out to Lois Davis. She studies the issue as a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation.
Read full coverage here.