By Catherine Brown, Senior Director, Policy and Advocacy
Reading time: Six minutes
The National College Attainment Network (NCAN) is thrilled to announce that it has selected eight outstanding organizations from a competitive pool of applicants for its inaugural Ascendium Fellowship Program. These organizations will participate in a
two-year program aimed at supporting students who are incarcerated or formerly incarcerated in pursuing postsecondary education.
The new Pell Grant for Prison Education Programs launched
on July 1 by the US Department of Education offers a powerful opportunity to advance racial and economic justice. For the first time since the 1990s, people who are incarcerated will be able to access Pell Grants to pay for postsecondary education.
Black Americans, who are imprisoned at four times the rate of white Americans, stand to benefit profoundly
from this expansion of access to one of the greatest levers for social and economic mobility – a college degree. Research shows those who receive postsecondary education in prison
are 48% less likely to return to prison than those who do not, and most high-growth, high-wage jobs require a degree or credential beyond high school. Unfortunately, the opportunity to attain a postsecondary degree is not evenly distributed and
only 35% of state prisons offer college programming.
As the number of prison education programs expands rapidly, a diverse set of stakeholders will be needed to ensure the program is equitably implemented and successful. With their expertise and longstanding roots in communities across the country, NCAN
member college access and success (CAS) programs are perfectly positioned to help address these needs. The fellows selected for this new initiative demonstrated an intensive commitment to serving students who have faced systemic barriers to postsecondary
education - especially students of color, students from low-income backgrounds, and first-generation students. They are also geographically dispersed. These organizations include:
California State University, Los Angeles, which has been offering an in-person B.A. degree program for incarcerated students since 2016 as part of the first cohort of universities
to participate in the Second Chance Pell Experimental Pilot. California State University, Los Angeles, maintains a strong commitment to its students throughout their academic and professional lives and ensures that students who are released prior
to earning their degrees complete their studies on our main campus. The institution’s Project Rebound program supports an average of 150 formerly incarcerated students per semester so that they can achieve academic success.
College Now Greater Cleveland, which is Ohio’s largest college access organization, providing college and career access advising; student financial aid counseling; scholarships;
and retention services to 33,000+ Northeast Ohioans of all ages every year. This project will allow College Now to continue the expansion of its adult-facing work in Cleveland and Akron, both of which have large re-entry populations. College Now’s
six-county geographic service area is home to two large correctional facilities, two major juvenile correctional facilities, and six jails.
Earn to Learn of Arizona, which provides matched-savings scholarships, success coaching, financial education, and workforce readiness resources to underserved populations across
Arizona. Earn to Learn envisions a world without educational barriers and seeks to address the widespread scarcity of resources for marginalized groups, including foster and homeless youth, indigenous populations, and rural communities. With this
funding Earn to Learn hopes to create an outreach and support system for incarcerated individuals. With this funding Earn to Learn hopes to create an outreach and support system for incarcerated individuals.
Goddard Riverside Community Center (The Options Center) in New York, NY, which provides college access and success
services to an average of 900 young people annually who experience barriers to postsecondary access and persistence, including young people who are from low-income backgrounds, BIPOC, first-generation to attend college, DREAMERs/DACA recipients,
immigrants, in the foster care system, experiencing homeless, and are justice-impacted. Goddard aims to ensure that justice-impacted students in New York City receive high-quality postsecondary advising and services and seeks to be at forefront
of disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline and, instead, creating pathways for its inverse, the prison-to-school pipeline.
Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance (LOSFA), which is a program of the Louisiana Board of Regents that strives to be Louisiana’s first choice for college access by
promoting, preparing for, and providing equity of college access. Since 2022, LOFSA’s M.J. Foster Promise Program has offered tuition assistance to Louisiana residents, including re-entry students, who have not been convicted of a violent crime.
LOSFA ensures re-entry students receive support in their journey by providing intensive academic/career advising and assisting with match and fit to guide them to the program and school that best meets their needs. LOSFA also addresses barriers
to completion by connecting justice-impacted individuals and families to vital support and resources to help with the college access and credential process.
Michigan College Access Network (MCAN), a statewide entity committed to increasing the percentage of Michigan residents with degrees or postsecondary certificates to 60% by
the year 2030. MCAN supports increased access to postsecondary opportunities for students from low-income backgrounds, students of color, and first-generation college-going students. Through participation in the Michigan Consortium for Higher
Education in Prison (MiCHEP), MCAN will accelerate its efforts to become a trusted source of information and best practices for supporting the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students find a pathway to postsecondary education.
Transformation and Reentry Through Education and Community (TREC)Programin St. Paul, MN provides higher education and wraparound services for 250+ degree-seeking incarcerated students at three Minnesota state prisons and 20-30 recently
released students. TREC seeks to help students build agency and community and to create environments with less harm and more abundance. Outside of face-to face degree coursework, TREC provides academic advising, leadership opportunities, research
clusters, and library services and helps re-entering students with education, housing, work placement, and mental health service connections.
Wichita State University Tech (WSU), a technical college in Wichita, KS that provides career specific educational pathways to well-paying careers. WSU participates in the Wichita
Work Release programs, assists individuals on parole/probation, and partners with Goodwill Industries in their “Unlocked” program, which serves justice involved individuals who don’t have a GED or High School diploma. WSU Tech is aiming to better
assist this population, expand its offerings and help to educate employers about the challenges faced by this population.
Fellows will meet monthly to learn from one another and to hone and strengthen their strategies for supporting the students who are or were incarcerated on their journey to attain a postsecondary education. Fellows will contribute to a comprehensive college
access and success guidebook and other valuable resources aimed at helping CAS programs support this population of learners. The overarching goal of this project is to start to build a national network of CAS programs with specialized knowledge and
expertise to support this growing population as they pursue postsecondary degrees and credentials of value.
NCAN is grateful to Ascendium Education Group for providing the financial support to make this groundbreaking initiative possible.
Read more about justice-impacted student-related sessions at NCAN's 2023 and 2024 National Conferences.
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