Awarded Grants

This grant supports the University of Virginia (UVA) in designing and launching a transfer path between Piedmont Valley Community College and the UVA School of Continuing and Professional Studies for students incarcerated in Virginia prisons. Through this partnership, UVA will become the first flagship public university in the nation to confer bachelor’s degrees in a prison.

This grant supports the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) in helping six states develop and implement plans for using Pell Grant dollars to increase postsecondary education in prison (PEP) programming. With technical assistance from SHEEO, teams from each of the six states will codify the application process for PEP programs seeking to access Pell Grants and develop plans to increase public funding from other available sources.

This grant supports Minneapolis Community and Technical College in partnering with Metropolitan State University to establish the Minnesota Center for Higher Education in Prison (MN-CHEP) and strengthen the Transformation and Reentry through Education and Community (TREC) initiative. MN-CHEP will serve as a hub for technical assistance to postsecondary education in prison programs in the Upper Midwest and the TREC initiative will connect degree-granting programs with reentry service providers supporting formerly incarcerated learners.

This grant supports the University of Wisconsin-Madison in launching a network of postsecondary education in prison programs at institutions throughout the Universities of Wisconsin system focused on strengthening systemic alignment and coordination in order to facilitate the development of new stackable credential pathways from pre-college through a bachelor’s degree.

This grant supports the National Center for Inquiry and Improvement in conducting exploratory analysis of the training available through community colleges that lead to supervisor-level jobs. NCII will examine jobs and wage data and conduct interviews with community colleges and employers regarding  opportunities to create training for low-wage workers that results in these thriving wage jobs.

This grant supports Strada Institute for the Future of Work in studying the impacts of postsecondary education in prison programs on returning citizens’ employment and earnings outcomes. Examining a variety of programs in Ohio, the mixed-methods study will identify shared features of these programs that consistently yield favorable labor market outcomes for participants.

This grant supports the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges in helping five states develop and implement plans for improving rural talent development. Supported by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association and HCM Strategists, state-level higher education leaders will work with rural-serving institutions and local communities to expand middle-skill, workforce-aligned pathways for rural learners statewide.

This grant supports Research for Action in understanding the implications of developmental education reform on incarcerated learners' postsecondary opportunities and outcomes.

This grant supports the National Association of Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) in providing technical support to colleges and universities working to become approved Prison Education Programs (PEPs). NASFAA will also convene intermediaries doing complementary work, so that PEP programs have more resources to effectively enroll and support incarcerated learners.

This grant will support Better Future Forward (BFF) in assessing its program effectiveness and the outcomes of the learners it serves. By deploying a survey of learners accessing its income-share agreement (ISA), gathering high-quality career outcomes data on its learners, improving servicing processes to increase compliance rates, and establishing a community of practice of ISA providers, BFF will contribute to improvements in outcomes-based lending practices.