Second Chance Pell: Six Years of Expanding Higher Education Programs in Prisons, 2016–2022

By Niloufer Taber and Asha Muralidharan

The Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative (SCP), launched by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) in 2015, provides need-based Pell Grants to people in state and federal prisons. The initiative examines whether expanding access to financial aid increases incarcerated adults’ participation in postsecondary educational opportunities. This program gives invited colleges the opportunity to provide credentialed college education programs within state and federal prisons using federal aid for incarcerated students who qualify. In 2016, ED invited 67 colleges in 28 states, and in 2020, it expanded SCP to include a total of 130 colleges from 42 states and Washington, DC. In 2022, SCP expanded again to include a total of 200 colleges in 48 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico.1 The Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) provides technical assistance to the participating colleges and corrections departments to ensure that the programs provide highquality postsecondary education in prison and after release. This report summarizes the first six years of the experiment and primarily focuses on information from the 2021–2022 financial aid year, using survey responses from 75 participating colleges with enrolled students funded through SCP during this period.2

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2023. 14p.