HEP Program Operations

With generous support from Ascendium Education Group and over ten years of experience facilitating college programming in Tennessee’s prisons, THEI has created Navigating Forward, a collection of clear, digestible, and comprehensive college navigation materials explicitly designed for learners in the carceral context, with special consideration for the unique challenges and needs of Prison Education Program (PEP) students. Each collection comprises individual resources that can stand alone or be shared collectively. A Glossary of Terms also accompanies the three collections…

The New England Prison Education Collaborative (NEPEC), led by the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE), and funded by Ascendium Education Group, will release the Request for Proposals (RFP) for its inaugural Accelerator Grants on Wednesday, April 30, 2025.

Five Accelerator Grants will be awarded to eligible higher education institutions located across the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont to increase Pell-eligible prison education programming in their state. 

Grant…

NASFAA 2nd Annual PEP Convening

Aligning Efforts: Navigating the Intersection of Student Services and Prison Education

Grand Hyatt Washington - Washington, DC

Wednesday, June 4, 3:30 p.m. ET through Saturday, June 7, 2025, 12:00 p.m. ET

The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) will host its second annual Prison Education Program (PEP) Convening in June. This in-person convening, …

Grand Hyatt Washington - Washington, DC
Wednesday, June 4, 3:30 p.m. ET through Saturday, June 7, 2025, 12:00 p.m. ET

Join us this summer in Washington, D.C., for the Second Annual Prison Education Program (PEP) Convening, hosted by The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA). This in-person convening will focus on the administration of higher education programs in prison and the critical services they provide to incarcerated students.

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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…

The Freedom Education Project Puget Sound (FEPPS), with generous support from the Mellon Foundation, is forming a national consortium of higher education in prison programs that operate in prisons designated for women. 

The Womxn’s Higher Education in Prison Consortium (WHEP) is a collaborative initiative designed to advance equity in higher education for incarcerated women, transgender, and gender-nonconforming individuals. This groundbreaking effort brings together programs operating in women-designated prisons to address shared challenges, foster…

Title: Completing the PEP Application and the E-App Process

Date: January 28, 2025
Time: 2:00 PM ET
Duration: 75 minutes
Price: Free

When Partner Connect and the E-App changed at the beginning of 2024, schools discovered they would need to add some unanticipated details to their application the first time they did a submission after that. And when the process and documentation to apply to be a Prison Education Program (PEP) via the E-App changed in the…

While end-of-course surveys are standard in most colleges and universities, they’re often designed for traditional students and overlook the unique needs of incarcerated students and the educators who serve them. This guide bridges that gap, offering evaluation questions tailored to the prison education context. Developed with input from students enrolled in prison education programs, it’s a tool to help ensure course evaluations are both meaningful and relevant. 

This guide was developed in collaboration between the Formerly Incarcerated College Graduates…

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…