Government Entities

The Midwestern Higher Education Compact (MHEC) brings together leaders from midwestern states to develop cost-savings opportunities, generate collaborative solutions to challenges and opportunities in higher education, and promote postsecondary alignment with workforce needs. 

Since the reinstatement of Pell Grant eligibility for incarcerated students under the FAFSA Simplification Act, colleges and universities across the country are exploring meaningful ways to design, launch, and scale high-quality Prison Education Programs (PEPs). As part of MHEC’s commitment to elevating…

A New Path: Deportation to Honduras is a new guide from the Education Justice Project that provides clear, practical information for individuals facing deportation to Honduras.

The guide covers:

  • What to expect upon arrival in Honduras, including how to stay safe;
  • Information on housing, employment, education, and more;
  • Practical tips for navigating the return and reintegration…

With the reinstatement of Pell and TAP funding, and in collaboration with the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) and other identifiable stakeholders, the State University of New York (SUNY) seeks to increase and expand incarcerated individuals access to quality post-secondary education, both during and after incarceration. Included in this resource are 13 principles that guide the design, implementation, and metrics for success of SUNY’s programs inside prisons, jails, and federal correctional facilities in New York State.

This Best Interest Determination (BID) Toolkit was created by the Vera Institute of Justice, in partnership with a BID Council and the members of the 2024 Corrections Education Leadership Academy (CELA), to be a resource for corrections agencies to prepare their BID system with all processes, procedures, and stakeholders in place, as necessary, to assess postsecondary institutions offering a PEP, according to federal regulations. To maintain their PEP status, postsecondary institutions must work with their correctional partner, otherwise known as the oversight entity, to complete a program…

The thesis of my book, Prisons of Creativity: Artistic Innovation During Incarceration (Routledge, 2025), is that the Constitution's intellectual property clause calls for promoting innovation by all people, including the incarcerated, to benefit the nation. The book proposes a shift from exploiting prison labor to supporting creativity among those who opt in, protecting their intellectual property rights, and making their creative products in literature, the visual arts,  music, drama, and other expressive products available to the public. The size of the prison…

The New England Prison Education Collaborative is preparing to host the first of our quarterly virtual workshops in March, “Conducting a Higher Education in Prison Needs Analysis: Varied Approaches and Perspectives.”  

Date and Time: March 19th, 2025, from 3:00- 4:30 PM EST. 

Registration Link:  https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/ev/reg/d3dzhr5 

Location: Zoom  

Event Details…

A New Path: A Guide to the Challenges and Opportunities After Deportation is a guide for people who live in the United States with the threat of deportation. This guide includes information on topics such as 

  • Know your rights
  • Planning for possible deportation
  • What to expect with detention and deportation
  • How to connect with resources in your home country
  • …

On September 30, 2024, Ithaka S+R released a new research report exploring how colleges and community organizations partner to provide reentry services. 

The following text was posted on the Ithaka S+R blog to announce publication.

When revised federal Pell Grant regulations went into effect in July of 2023, one of the provisions stipulated that college in prison programs would be obliged to document how they provide reentry services…

On September 30, 2024, the Department of Education significantly revised its instructions that allow schools to apply to be official Prison Education Programs. The announcement details the new instructions and provides some process clarifications. You can find more information at the NASFAA PEP WebCenter, located at nasfaa.org/pep. The link to information about starting a Prison Education Program, including the announcement, can be found at https://www.nasfaa.org/starting_pep.

We are assessing the impacts of…

This research report offers findings to guide discussions with program administrators, faculty, and formerly incarcerated students on how to improve student access, curriculum choice, retention, and completion. To see how SUNY programs serve people in New York prisons and after they leave incarceration, SUNY’s Office of Higher Education in Prison (SUNY HEP) created a longitudinal data system that links regularly collected student data from the SUNY Institutional Research Information System (SIRIS) and the National Student Clearinghouse with individual-level corrections data from DOCCS.…