In 2023, Federal Pell Grant funding was reinstated for learners who are incarcerated, and new regulations were released to govern the eligibility of higher education in prison programs for such funding. This has driven increased interest in higher education in prison programming, as programs look to help their students access Pell grants and…

Pell eligibility for incarcerated people is a great rehabilitative opportunity, but several challenges remain. This article recaps five of the issues identified by the original research articles in this special issue. It also considers how solutions proposed in these studies may be beneficial across a variety of these issues and gathers…

The landscape of higher education in prison programming is in the midst of a sea change. After eight years of the Second Chance Pell experiment, federal Pell grant funding for students who are incarcerated was fully reinstated on July 1, 2023. While Pell reinstatement will likely increase educational access for students who are incarcerated, it…

In Fall of 2022, Ithaka S+R launched a first-of-its-kind national survey on technology access in higher education in prison programs. The survey asked respondents about student access to technology in their Higher Education in Prison (HEP) program, focusing on four thematic areas: technological devices, learning management systems and software,…