Thousands of prisoners throughout the United States get their college degrees behind bars, most of them paid for by the federal Pell Grant program, which offers the neediest undergraduates tuition aid that they don’t have to repay. That program is about to expand exponentially next month, giving tens of thousands more students behind bars financial aid per year.
During the 2021-2022 academic year, the government spent over $26 billion total on Pell Grants – and the prisoner grants would amount to less than a 1% increase. If a prisoner paroles with a college degree, never reoffends, gets a job earning a good salary and pays taxes for 20 years, it’s a clear return on investment. Every dollar spent in prison-based education yields more than four dollars in taxpayer savings from reduced incarceration costs, studies have found.The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 amended the Higher Education Act of 1965 to ban Pell Grants and other financial aid to people incarcerated in federal or state prison.
Black and Hispanic students were enrolled by eight and 15 percentage points below their prison population, respectively.
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