This four-part, Emmy-nominated PBS documentary offers an intimate look at the lives and experiences of a dozen incarcerated students participating in the Bard Prison Initiative and their families. The documentary confronts and challenges conventional wisdom about the purpose of both education and incarceration.
This article was written by Katherine Mangan of the Chronicle of Higher Education.
On March 10, 2021, George Chochos, Senior Federal Policy Associate at the Vera Institute of Justice; Rev. Vivian Nixon, Executive Director of College & Community Fellowship; and Max Kenner, Executive Director of the Bard Prison Initiative, joined this webinar to discuss the historical restoration of Pell Grant eligibility for incarcerated students and what the return of federal student aid funding will mean for the field of college-in-prison. Over 150 attendees from across BPI’s network including alumni, supporters, and colleagues in the field joined in the webinar.
This article is a guest essay written in the New York Times by Max Kenner, founder and executive director of the Bard Prison Initiative at Bard College. Mr. Kenner argues that the FAFSA Simplification Act "has the potential to do more good within U.S. prisons than any policy in a generation." But, he continues, the work has just begun.
This article from USA Today discusses the expansion of Pell Grants, which were eliminated in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 for incarcerated people and ended the majority of prison education programs.
To understand the extent to which states provide incarcerated youth with access to educational and…
The Federal Interagency Reentry Council (FIRC) began work in 2011 to reduce…
The Federal Interagency Reentry Council worked to reduce recidivism and improve employment, education, housing, health and child welfare outcomes. Consisting of more than 20 federal agencies, the Reentry Council coordinated and leveraged existing federal resources that were targeted to reentry, used the bully pulpit to dispel myths, clarified policies and provided visibility to programs and policies that work, and reduced the policy barriers to successful reentry. The council was recognized in a 2014 GAO report as one of four model interagency collaborations, and the council’s collective…
This news article from Open Campus examines the options available to incarcerated students in the state of Florida. The third largest prison system in the country, located within the state, only enrolls 326 incarcerated college students.
The bipartisan Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), signed by President Obama on July 22, 2014, created a new vision for how America prepares an educated and skilled workforce that expands opportunities for workers and employers.
The 21st-century public workforce development system created through WIOA builds closer ties between business leaders, state and local Workforce Development Boards, labor unions, community colleges, non-profit organizations, youth-serving organizations, and state and local officials to deliver a more job-driven approach to training and skills…
