While in prison, incarcerated students face a variety of challenges that impede their access to higher education. In July 2023, Congress lifted a ban on federal Pell Grant funding for incarcerated individuals in prison education programs, increasing funding opportunities for learners, but many individuals need help readjusting to the classroom environment or getting their academic skills up to college level.
The Petey Greene Program, a nonprofit organization, has partnered with prisons and higher education institutions for years to provide tutoring services to incarcerated learners. PGP launched its College Bridge program in 2020 to promote college-level writing, reading and math skills for incarcerated students, setting them up for academic success.
In this episode of Voices of Student Success, host Ashley Mowreader speaks with the Petey Green Program’s Chiara Benetollo, executive director of the Puttkammer Center for Educational Justice and Equity, and Katherine Meloney, director of the Villanova program at SCI Phoenix, to discuss the college bridge program and the ways higher ed can support justice and learning for incarcerated individuals.
An edited version of the podcast appears below.
Inside Higher Ed: I wonder if we can start the conversation by, very broadly, addressing the role of higher education in supporting justice and incarcerated persons. For a lot of people, this conversation has become more prevalent with the reinstatement of Pell Grants for incarcerated students. But this is something that’s been happening for a lot of years.
Benetollo: Of course, it’s wonderful that more people are talking about the intersection of higher education and justice. We know from research that some of the lack of educational opportunities in prisons and jails are correlated with high unemployment rates among formerly incarcerated people, and in turn, contribute to high reincarceration rates. There’s obviously a lot of ways in which higher education and any form of education in prison is connected to social and economic justice.
But I also think that it’s important to think about education as justice in and of itself—education as a human right. Everybody has the right to think in an abstract way, to think, to engage in deep intellectual conversations, to really stimulate those parts of our brains. I almost want to reframe the question of the relationship between higher education and justice, to think about how higher education, in itself, is a form of justice for those who are incarcerated.
Meloney: I completely agree with Chiara.
I think one thing that we tend to forget is that education is a right. It’s not a privilege. By providing education to incarcerated individuals, it offers them the chance for personal growth and transformation. And what we see is that it has a huge ripple effect. It also impacts their families, it impacts their community and it is [an] extremely important aspect to justice throughout, not just for incarcerated individuals, but for their communities as well.
Inside Higher Ed: For incarcerated students, specifically, there’s quite a few barriers to entering higher education, but one of those is a lack of preparation. Petey Greene has a College Bridge program now that helps provide some of those transitional measures to help support students who are incarcerated here. I wonder if you can talk about the program and some of the ways that it supports students.
Benetollo: One of the greatest barriers to access to higher education in prison is the lack of preparation.
We know that about a quarter of incarcerated people who have a high school diploma—so they are technically eligible for higher education programming—have very low numeracy and math skills, and obviously even higher numbers have low enough skills that they just are not in a position to thrive in a credit-bearing, college-level program.
So what the College Bridge program does is, as the name suggests, bridge that gap. We work to meet students where they are, and to prepare them to be able to enroll and really to succeed in higher ed, in programs in prisons and beyond prisons.
We do that through two courses, a math and a writing course that are similar to the college readiness programs that a lot of campuses have, or to a first-year writing seminar, for example.
I will say that another great benefit that I see the College Bridge program having, in addition to just providing those additional skills for people or a refresher of skills that people have, is fostering students’ confidence, helping more people see themselves as college students.
A lot of the College Bridge students came to us maybe because that was the program that was available at their facility, maybe because they have an interest in writing or because they hate math. We have found a variety of reasons why people come to the program, and we have worked to incorporate those objectives in our curriculum, while also slowly building people’s self-image as the image of someone who can go to college, if that’s something that they want to do.
Inside Higher Ed: Kate, I wonder if you can talk about how this looks practically at SCI Phoenix?
Meloney: This has been program-changing for us.
Our students have asked for preparatory programming for a while, and it has been very exciting for us to be able to partner with Petey Greene to offer a real, meaningful bridge to the academic classroom.
For a lot of our students, they are older. They haven’t been in the classroom for 20, 30 years, and it is very intimidating to go straight into an English class where you are reading six books a semester and you have to write very in-depth papers and essays, and also be able to add to discussion in the classroom.
Our students have really benefited from this, and not only our students who are looking to enroll in the program, but we are really excited to be able to offer, for example, the math college bridge program for students who are already in our program, but who have a fear of math and need some extra help.
Like Chiara said, it’s all about confidence. It’s all about sharing with our students that they can do this, and they know that they can, but they have been told time and time again that they can’t. And it is being able to see these students thrive academically, that is really exciting for them to see.
Inside Higher Ed: We see that a lot with adult learners, where it’s sometimes just reminding them what it’s like to go to college or to be in class again. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about how this confidence might help students continue their educational journeys as well. This program doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to earn a degree or certificate, but how can it be that first start into that educational journey again?
Benetollo: What we see, especially, I would say with a writing course, is students come to us with a certain understanding of what a good writing is. I taught in college—that’s very common in colleges outside prisons as well: You arrive and you think that academic writing is a sort of mysterious set of norms, that it’s only achievable to a very small part of the population, and certainly not to you.
So a lot of the work that we do is think about, what skills incarcerated students already have as writers and readers, because those are some of the people who read the most and write the most in the country. They are reading every day. They’re writing every day. They’re writing letters to their families. They are extremely familiar with reading and writing, just not with that, maybe, particular genre.
Once you start making that passage that you know, actually, “Yes, I write poems, and there are so many ways in which this expressive form of writing can help me write effective college-level essays,” I think it’s really transformative, and it sustains you after you enroll in college [and] throughout your career. I mean, being able to see to see yourself as someone who already has skills to build upon and doesn’t need to learn everything from zero, especially for adult learners, that is really important. It’s important that we don’t treat adult learners as blank slates. Kids, as well, are not blank slates, but all the more adult learners who come with a wealth of experiences and skills.
Meloney: I think that that is what is so amazing about our classes, and what surprises our students, is that what really makes the classroom a rich experience is their lived experiences.
They have so much to add to the classroom environment. Our classes take much longer to get through the material than they do on say, our main campus, because our students are so engaged. They want to do more reading, they ask for more materials. They do all their reading, and they want to do extra writing. They want to practice. This is something that is really exciting to them, because they can bring in their own lives, into the classroom and connect those two that is very exciting for everybody.
Inside Higher Ed: This College Bridge program is great in helping break that barrier of [lack of] preparation for students. But what are some other ways that we can support incarcerated students through completing their educational journey and continuing to learn even beyond their time they may be serving?
Benetollo: As an organization that started as a tutoring organization—although now we do much more—of course, my answer is going to be tutoring. Providing individualized support is something that we hear from our students that is really essential. There’s actually a lot of research showing that tutoring is among the most effective educational interventions on any campuses, from high schools to colleges, outside of prisons, and all the more, I think, it’s important in prisons. When those opportunities for one-on-one interactions with instructors are limited, where educational support services, meeting with your dean, meeting with your advisers, all those elements that may make for a great, supportive college experience are constitutionally more limited.
What we have been doing at the Petey Greene Program, and we’re continuing to expand in this direction, is having tutors work with students from the College Bridge program level, to working with students who are enrolled in college, and then continuing to work with them after they are released at a crucial time in which education tends to take a bit of a back seat. Because once you’re released, you gotta find housing, you gotta find a job. You’re reconnecting with your family, maybe you’re supporting your family. So it’s really difficult to continue to prioritize education in that context, and providing individualized one-on-one support that, again, supports your motivation as well as your progress in terms of skills, is, I think, really crucial.
Meloney: It is very clear that our students are hungry for education, and once they get their B.A., most of them want to go on to get their master’s degree, which is not something that we can offer at this time.
What we can offer is exactly what Chiara was talking about, which is peer-to-peer tutoring. Our students create their own study groups, and former students, graduates come together to work with students who are either going through the College Bridge program or who are currently going through the Villanova program to assist with homework, with writing, debating ideas even, and this is something that keeps that classroom environment alive as much as we can.
We would love to be able to offer more, but it is clear that our students are motivated to continue their learning outside of the classroom.
Benetollo: On the note of peer tutoring and students serving for as tutors for other students, I do want to say that we often talk about the limitations of the correctional environment, which, of course, are many. But one thing that correctional environments really have that distinguishes them, I think, from outside colleges are incredibly strong self-organized learning communities that play an incredible role in fostering education in this environment.
I’m so glad that Kate mentioned that the peer tutoring inside [the] facility in which they operate. In two other facilities, not yet in our partnership with Villanova, but in two other facilities, what we started doing this year is having joint cohorts of volunteer tutors from the outside and incarcerated tutors operating together to support the College Bridge students. We are seeing that it just enriches the conversation so much, because those two groups of tutors are able to bring in different perspectives and to approach a text in or the assignments in different ways, each contributing a different point of view.
Inside Higher Ed: Something I like to ask people who work in student success is, what do you see as the metrics of success in your work? With incarcerated students, that can look like a lot of different things, so if you had to put metrics on student success in your work, what would that be?
Benetollo: I think a lot of the metrics that we consider with adult learners in general or students in general apply here as well, and those are some of the metrics that we consider.
In the College Bridge program, we do diagnostic and line assessment for math and for writing. And through this, we are able to see progress in academic skills, as I mentioned before. I think confidence is also an incredibly important metric in itself and because it supports further academic process progress.
Meloney: When we are looking at metrics of success, I prefer to look towards student and more student-centered ideas of success. Education aligns with restorative justice principles by facilitating healing reintegration, and it can help individuals understand their impact in life.
What we see is, individuals who have taken their confidence to the next level and are forming groups inside for political action to better their own lives and advocate for those on the outside, as well as for themselves. I think that that is incredibly important in something that we don’t always examine, which is where our students go from the classroom, and we see a lot of our students who are doing community organizing and connecting with those on the outside who they want to advocate for, be it youth, marginalized individuals. There’s a group on the inside at SCI Phoenix that creates a fund for an individual to go to college. And I think that is something that is really important to understand, that it does go beyond the classroom.
Inside Higher Ed: As we consider next steps in where incarcerated student supports can go or where this conversation for this unique group of learners can lead, where would you like to see the conversation around incarcerated students go? What are some continued areas of focus that you would like to see from either higher education institutions or other groups?
Benetollo: I think one thing the conversation has already started to evolve in, considering higher education in prison, is something that starts before you enroll in college and ends after you get your degree. And I think that continuing to think about that continuum is really essential.
College Bridge, of course, comes to mind, any form of college readiness, as well as ongoing support for the transition for what happens after you finish your degree. Like Kate was mentioning, there is a tremendous appetite for masters’ programs, Ph.D. programs in carceral facilities, that remains hugely underaddressed, but also to transition into the workforce, employment, etc. So that’s something that I think it’s important we continue to discuss as we continue the conversation about higher education in prison, thinking about partnerships with community organizations and with employers or whatever comes next after you have wrapped up your degree.
Meloney: One thing I would like to see is a more consistent effort at a national level to create equal opportunities for incarcerated individuals in each state, so that your success isn’t determined on what state you happen to be incarcerated in. If the state that you are in is not interested in programs like College Bridge or expanding education on the inside, what does that mean for you? So how do we create a national movement for consistent success in education, in postsecondary education, in person for all incarcerated individuals, especially women, who tend to get left behind in this area?
Benetollo: Speaking of groups that get left behind, people who don’t speak English as their first language, or who are not fluent in English, is another category that I would like to see a lot more focus on. We have started to develop some English language learning programs, some bilingual support, and I think there is so much more work to do, because if we know that educational opportunities are limited for people who are incarcerated, if you don’t speak the language in which most of those educational are offered, your options are even further limited.