The official announcement was scheduled for Friday, when Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Attorney General Loretta Lynch visit the Maryland Correctional Institution in Jessup, Maryland. Back then, a Democratically-led Congress successfully argued that limited resources should not be spent on those behind bars, though the bill that ultimately banned the practice was introduced by a Texas Republican.
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Pell grants are for low-income students and do not have to be repaid.
The latter position has some research to back it up. The program will be available to inmates who are eligible for release, particularly in the next five years. By setting up the proposed experimental sites, the administration would be seeking to get around the ban with a pilot program.The experimental sites initiative section of the Higher Education Act of 1965 allows federal officials to set up temporary programs to test the effectiveness of statutory and regulatory flexibility for disbursing Title IV student aid. A year later, Congress cut off funding, prohibiting state and federal prison inmates from receiving Pell Grants as part of an anti-crime legislation. Prison education and training is truly a win-win-boosting formerly incarcerated individuals’ employment rates upon release, substantially decreasing recidivism, and yielding tremendous cost savings in reduced incarceration. The tests could give the Education Department data to support possible revisions to laws or regulations. More than 8 million students receive aid through the grants, and the government has funded the program with about $30 billion annually. According to the Education Department, the maximum grant for an individual in the 2015-2016 academic year is $5,775, and grants are based largely on financial need and cost of attendance.
“Getting a college education takes an incredible amount of hard work”, Amy Roza, director of the partnership, said in an interview. Obama is the first sitting president to visit a federal prison. Supporters say the correctional education programs are cost-effective compared with the costs of re-incarceration.
House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman U.S. Rep. John Kline, R-Minnesota, said if the Obama administration wants to see change, “it must stop governing through executive fiat and start working with the people’s elected representatives in Congress”.
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We applaud the Obama administration for taking this important step.
