Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education, produces College Inside, a newsletter focused on the future of postsecondary education in prison. We publish a biweekly email and a monthly print PDF edition for inside distribution. You can get the email version in your inbox here (check your spam for a confirmation email if you don't see it right away), and you can sign up incarcerated friends…
Framing the Opportunity: Eight State Policy Recommendations That Support Postsecondary Credential Completion for Underserved Populations, released by Jobs for the Future.
Authors:
Rachel Pleasants McDonnell, Director
Michael Collins, Vice President
To reestablish the U.S.’s place among…
Trellis Foundation blog post suggested by Keisha Johnson on the Whova conference app.
The Power of Policy Fellowships in Achieving Systemic Change
Introduction: At Trellis Foundation, supporting public policy change is crucial to our mission of helping low-income students and students of color succeed in postsecondary education. That’s why our funding strategy includes breaking down the systemic barriers faced by students from communities facing historic and persistent…
This study helps to explain how the use of the criminal history box on college applications and the supplemental requirements and procedures that follow create barriers to higher education for otherwise qualified applicants. In this study, which focuses on the State University of New York (SUNY), we found that almost two out of every three applicants who disclosed a felony conviction were denied access to higher education, not because of a purposeful denial of their application but because they were driven out of the application process.
Rick Sammartino posted this fantastic story through the Whova conference app for NCHEP.
Achieving Liftoff — Incarceration to Graduation | Be Boundless
This report from the Community College Journal of Research and Practice summarizes results from a critical mixed-methods case study of a mid-sized urban community college district. The case study uses publicly available data to compare these colleges’ explicit commitment to access and opportunity with their investments in surveillance, security, and enclosure. The authors argue that a school-prison nexus, or SPN (similar to what many refer to as the school-to-prison pipeline), is enacted well beyond PK-12 schools, in and through higher education.
The overall purpose of NCHEP is to provide an annual opportunity for the higher education in prison community to gather and mobilize the talent, resources, and energy needed to expand access to quality higher education and academic reentry support services to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people.
This webpage includes links to each HEP newsletter.
Curriculum overview: Tennessee Higher Education Initiative disrupts systems of harm, and creates opportunities for autonomy and success through education, support, and advocacy with and for justice-impacted individuals. This program serves adult men, with college credit offerings. Instruction is on-site, face-to-face, and remote.


