According to the Department of Education, in 1993 prisoners received $34 million in Pell grants but a year later the funding was stopped by Congress. Those supporting the ending of the federal grants argued that only law-abiding citizens should receive aid.
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The Obama administration is expected to go around Congress to provide Pell grants to federal prisoners, administratively overriding legislation passed by Democrats and signed by former President Bill Clinton. By setting up what Duncan calls “experimental sites”, the administration seeks to get around the ban. Prior to 1994, inmates could be awarded the grants and use the money to help pay for books and other expenses. Set to be officially announced on Friday by the secretary of education and the attorney general, the plan would potentially give thousands of inmates access to a college education.
“Getting a college education takes an incredible amount of hard work”, Amy Roza, director of the partnership, said in an interview.
Goucher is part of the Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison, based at Bard College in New York.
Name SearchWatch Service’>Ted Mitchell called Pell grants “one of the key levers that we have” to increase the college completion rate.
Advocates for expanding federal student aid to prisoners point to societal benefits.
Prisoners who participate in education programs are “43 percent less likely to return to prison and 13 percent more likely to have a job after finishing their sentences”, the Politico article states.
Although he acknowledged the need to contain costs and to create more “tuition- and debt-free degree options”, Duncan was to say that such policies aimed at drastically reducing student-loan debt should be only one part of improving the nation’s higher education system.
Reps. Donna Edwards, D-Md., and Danny Davis, D-Ill., introduced legislation in May that would reinstate Pell Grant eligibility for federal and state prisoners.
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The Obama administration plans to restore federal funding to give incarcerated people access to higher education while they are serving time in federal and state institutions.
