Building a Prison-to-College Pipeline
If there’s an argument against giving Pell grants to prisoners that particularly galls Education Secretary Arne Duncan, it’s the suggestion by some Republicans that the Obama administration is taking money intended for hard-working students and giving it to criminals.
“Having an inmate receive Pell grants doesn’t take a nickel from anybody else,” Duncan told me in a phone interview on Wednesday. “This never pits one group over another, and it’s not robbing Peter to pay Paul. It’s just trying to have a few more people have access to what could be a life-chance-forming opportunity.”
Last week, alongside Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Duncan appeared at a prison in Maryland to announce the launch of a pilot program that would make a limited number of inmates eligible for federal college aid while they’re still in jail. Congress banned Pell grants for prisoners in 1994, but the administration is relying on a provision of the Higher Education Act to resume the practice on a trial basis. The idea—backed by a 2013 Rand Corporation study that found prisoner education is a cost-effective way to reduce recidivism—is one that has bipartisan support.
Recommended: The Makeup Tax
Related Story
Yet the Obama administration is clearly taking a risk by launching the pilot program now, without waiting for full congressional approval that could come through the passage of criminal-justice reform, which has gained momentum on Capitol Hill in recent months. Already, someRepublicans are accusing the administration of going around the law—an argument that Duncan similarly dismissed. “I think waiting on Congress is almost never a good bet,” the secretary said with a chuckle. He knows from experience. Duncan is one of two Cabinet officers (along with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack) who have served for the entire Obama presidency, and he has been waiting six and a half years for Congress to overhaul the George W. Bush-era No Child Left Behind Act. (In the face of congressional inaction, the administration has exempted most states from many of its key requirements.)
“Quite candidly, Congress often doesn’t do much until we do something, and then they react to that,” Duncan said. “So it kind of spurs them to take action. But anyone who says this stops them from doing something or stifles debate—it’s just patently false.”
Recommended: The Republican Road Block Ahead
The administration is now waiting for proposals from universities who want to participate in the Pell grant initiative. Duncan said that while there are no plans to restrict eligibility based on the type of crime an inmate committed, it would be focused on prisoners scheduled for release “in the next couple of years.” About 700,000 inmates are released from prison in the U.S. each year, which Duncan likened to a “tidal wave.” “They’re either going to be released and go back to the streets and go back to a life of crime, and go back to being a menace to society, or they’re going to be released with some real skills and possibly even a college degree, or credit towards a college diploma,” he said. “And as a parent, as a taxpayer, I know which one I would prefer.”
“They’re either going to be released and go back to the streets and go back to a life of crime … or they’re going to be released with some real skills and possibly even a college degree.”In the interview, Duncan also addressed a more fundamental goal of education: keeping kids out of prison in the first place. The administration last year stepped up its efforts to close what is often described as the “school-to-prison pipeline,” and Duncan said the government had spent about $5 billion on grants to turn around failing schools. He tied that effort to the push in many states and districts to reduce out-of-school suspensions and expulsions, which disproportionately affect people of color. “We’ve seen many states and districts start to change their policies, moving away from zero-tolerance, moving toward restorative justice and peer juries, and working with kids rather than putting them out into the street,” he said. “That’s a big, big step in the right direction.”
Here's a transcript of my interview with Duncan, edited for clarity and length.
Russell Berman: Just getting Congress to reauthorize Pell grants for non-criminals has been a struggle under Republican control. What do you say to families of students who have worked hard, still are saddled with student-loan debt and may wonder why inmates should get government assistance for education?
Arne Duncan: To be clear, this is never haves-versus-have-nots or whatever. Having an inmate receive Pell grants doesn’t take a nickel from anybody else, and this is really about trying to help individuals get back on their feet. And ultimately why Republicans should—and some will—love this is it’s a huge way to reduce recidivism and save money over time. This never pits one group over another, and it’s not robbing Peter to pay Paul. It’s just trying to have a few more people have access to what could be a life-chance-forming opportunity.
Look, when this program was in place 20 years ago, it was something like 0.1 percent of all Pell money, so the budget conversation here is not a real debate or a real issue.
Berman: So it’s not coming from some pool of money that is limited?
Duncan: Exactly. The opposite of that.
Berman: How many prisoners are likely to receive Pell grants as part of this program?
Duncan: We really don’t have any idea yet. To be clear, what we’re going to be doing is putting out a [request for proposal] for universities who want to partner with prisons. We don’t know how many are going to step up. We’re only going to pick ones where we think there’s a good chance of success, where there’s a high quality. And of those we pick, we don’t know their capacity to serve a certain number, so there’s no sense now. We do hope that many universities across the nation will step up and apply. And we think, again, this has a chance to have a very significant impact. And [for] Congress, which we hope chooses at some point to take this to scale, hopefully that evidence base that we build will help to inform that conversation.
So we’re hopeful, and we’ll have a strong evaluative piece to this, and we’ll sort of learn over time what works and what doesn’t.
Berman: As of now, what limits is the administration going to put on this? Would violent offenders be eligible?
Duncan: The short answer is that we’re first going to look to work with folks who are going to be released back into society relatively soon, in the next couple of years. So I think we distinguish less on the type of crime and more on the, ‘Are you coming back into society?’ And I kept Building a Prison-to-College Pipeline - Yahoo News:
