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Launched in 2015, the Second Chance Pell Experiment allowed a select number of institutions of higher education to provide Pell Grants to incarcerated students. Seven years later, and on the cusp of Pell expansion, there are a few noteworthy impacts of the federal experiment:
» As of 2022, up to 200 institutions of higher education can participate in the federal experiment.
» Over 28,000 unduplicated students enrolled in postsecondary education through the Second Chance Pell Experiment from 2016 through 2021.
» Across the pilot’s first 2 years, institutions awarded approximately $35.6 million in Pell Grants to about 8,800 incarcerated students.
A lesser known yet critical area of knowledge and understanding is how, specifically, some incarcerated students are able to participate in the experiment and others are not. At the heart of this inquiry is certainly a question about college admissions, but one that is uniquely rooted in the context of equity and opportunity during incarceration. Until recently, the ways that incarcerated people became part of the experiment were largely unknown beyond anecdotal information from practitioners and participants. Consequently, serious questions about the Pell Grant in prison and issues of equity and access persist.
