Students in PSU's Higher Education in Prison Program in 2019.
Beginning in July 2023, students who are currently incarcerated will once again have access to Pell Grant funding — access that was stripped away by the 1994 Crime Bill. In the years that followed, prison education programs decreased in number to just a handful still in operation today. Portland State University is among the few institutions providing access to higher education for those currently incarcerated. PSU also launched the first four-year degree program available to incarcerated women in the state, the Higher Education in Prison Program (HEP), at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in 2019.
This month, PSU was one of 20 institutions awarded $120,000 from Ascendium Education Group’s Ready for Pell initiative to prepare for future Pell Grant access. Ready for Pell is intended to assist institutions providing higher education in prisons to navigate these changes and build-out programs to provide student assistance and new opportunities for education.
The grant will fund a Pell Readiness Counselor for 20 months, provide laptops for incarcerated students and create a Student Support Fund to eliminate financial barriers to application.
“The counselor will work closely with the HEP program and they'll work closely with a variety of student-facing offices,” said Deb Arthur, associate professor with PSU’s University Studies Program and founder of the Higher Education in Prison Program (formerly the Reverse the Pipeline program), which helps provide educational opportunities for women who are serving out their sentences. “We're specifically hiring someone who has financial aid experience, understands Pell and also understands and has experience with systems of incarceration.”
Arthur hopes to fill the position by mid-April.
“We’ve been looking for a bridge to Pell and now it’s here. Access to the Pell Grant is going to change the landscape a lot because then students can pay tuition and our program will have a base level of funding,” she added. “It won’t cover everything but it’s huge.”
The grant will also support the cost of 25 laptops for students at Coffee Creek. Arthur has been working with Tracie Hightower, Director of Education and Training with the Oregon Department of Corrections, to allow students access to the computers for several tasks including applying for financial aid and completing coursework. If SB 1522 passes, students will also be able to use the laptops to take online classes.
“Technology has been a barrier for quite some time. We're right on the cusp of very exciting changes where students will finally be able to utilize some online resources,” Arthur said.
Until online access is approved, the biggest benefit for students will be the ability to type their assignments and print them, rather than relying entirely on handwritten work.
“Sometimes people get their work confiscated or thrown away if there was a room search for some reason,” Arthur said. “You just lose everything. So the laptops are huge for a number of reasons.”
Funding is also creating a Student Support Fund to provide direct support to students and remove any financial barriers to full admission. This $10,000 fund could cover the cost of application fees or accessing transcriptions from other institutions.
Thanks to an additional $30,000 allocation from PSU’s Student Success Committee, PSU has also hired a directly impacted peer support specialist to work with formerly incarcerated students on campus. The peer support specialists will operate PSURebound out of the Transfer & Returning Student Resource Center.
To discuss the issues facing incarcerated students, Arthur is also moderating a discussion and screening of the documentary “College Behind Bars” on March 3. “College Behind Bars,” produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, tells the story of incarcerated men and women struggling to earn college degrees and improve their lives as part of the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI). A panel discussion following the screening will feature: Oregon State Senator Michael Dembrow; Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt; Tracie Hightower, Director of Education & Training, Oregon DOC; Dyjuan Tatro and Rodney Spivey-Jones, alums of the BPI program and Lanelle Rowe, PSU HEP student.