With Pell Grants Expanding to the Incarcerated, Experts Say Prisons Need To be Less Restrictive of Students

When Congress voted in December 2020 to restore Pell Grants for incarcerated Americans after a 26-year ban, advocates hailed the move as an opportunity for 760,000 people in prison to achieve a better life through education. But now, as the July start date approaches, experts are warning that prison-imposed restrictions can prevent this expansion of Pell from reaching its full potential.

Dr. Deborah Appleman, the Hollis L. Caswell professor and chair of educational studies at Carleton CollegeThere are often limits to the educational materials that incarcerated people are allowed to keep in their cells, according to Dr. Deborah Appleman, the Hollis L. Caswell professor and chair of educational studies at Carleton College, who has taught in prisons for sixteen years.

“In the prisons where I work, they’re limited to no more than 10 books total,” she said. “They’re always having to make these heartbreaking choices about which books they’re going to get [and which] they’re going to give away.”

Faculty are also restricted in the number of materials that they can bring into prisons, as well as what type. Appleman, who often uses video in her teaching, was prevented from bringing discs into a prison because officials said that they could be used to smuggle in drugs.

Incarcerated students often don’t have much chance to use essential educational tools that people on the outside take for granted.

“Computer access is really atrocious,” said Appleman.

Demetrius James, program manager at the Bard Prison Initiative and a former incarcerated studentChina Jorrin used with permission from the Bard Prison InitiativeDemetrius James, program director of the Bard Microcollege for Just Community Leadership with the Bard Prison Initiative, which runs higher education programs in seven New York State prisons, knows this firsthand. As an incarcerated student, he dealt with computer rules that seemed arbitrary. Inmates were not allowed to access the computer lab on days when they had class, even if class ended early or was cancelled.