How Federal Pell Grants for Incarcerated Women Could Improve Quality of Life and Change the Fabric of Education in the U.S.
Gabriela Castro
April 2024
There is no question that going to college affects life outcomes. The most apparent effect is that higher education is strongly correlated with higher income.[31] The benefits aren’t limited to finances. According to one study, college completion is associated with less health issues and greater longevity across all racial and ethnic identities.[42] Furthermore, public resources like Federal Pell Grants help reduce the cost of going to college for those who qualify based on financial need. More specifically, it helps students who are from lower income brackets receive more robust financial aid for college through the program.
Prior to 2020, Federal Pell Grants were not available to people in incarceration.[26] This was due to the 1994 Crime Bill which prohibited people serving prison sentences from accessing federal aid.[23] The sole exception for this law was made in 2015 by the Department of Education, which implemented the Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative (SCP), which essentially tested using federal financial aid at state and federal prisons and invited specific colleges to participate in 2016.[36]
That is until a December 2020 Supreme Court decision in which it was decided that incarcerated individuals were eligible for the Pell Grant, which went into effect in July 2021.[13] The law was further amended in 2022 when legislators expanded Pell Grant eligibility to include prison education programs (PEP), effective July 2023.[4] With the option to fund college education through federal resources now available to them, Pell Grants can change the lives of incarcerated women across the U.S. through educational attainment, higher income potential, better physical and mental health, reduce unemployment rates, lower recidivism rates, and better generational outcomes.
How Pell Grants Affect College Attainment
In the U.S., college average annual tuition costs $10,662 for public in-state institutions, $23,630 for public out-of-state colleges, and $42,162 for private colleges.[21] These costs grow and will continue to grow every year and its impact shows. By the end of 2023, the average college loan debt was $37,090 in total per borrower.[18] The rising cost can discourage people from finishing their degrees. It is estimated that 32.9% of students dropped out of college in 2023.[19] When a 2022 survey studied why, 59% of students who dropped out before COVID and 52% of students who dropped out during COVID cited the cost of attending college as a critical reason for dropping out.[37] This is where the Pell Grant makes a difference. For the 2023-2024 award year, eligible Pell Grant recipients can receive as much as $7,395 from the program each year,[17] and it can be renewed for up to 6 years.[3] Not only does the Pell Grant make a direct financial impact, but students who receive it can be considered for other forms of financial aid from their college or universities such as scholarships simply because eligibility for Pell Grants can be used as an indicator of financial need.
Current Educational Attainment Trends Among Incarcerated Women
Incarcerated people, and more specifically, incarcerated women, are a unique demographic when we consider college attendance and graduation. In 2021, the US Census Bureau found that 37.9% of U.S. adults over 25 years old held a degree.[34] By comparison, a 2016 study found that 5.1% of incarcerated women held a bachelor’s degree while 11% had completed some college.[27]
While the proportion of incarcerated women who have any college experience or completed a degree is higher than the proportion of incarcerated men who have at least some college experience or earned a degree, incarcerated men are twice as likely to have entered prison with a GED than women.[27] Furthermore, a 2019 study found that while about 1 in 4 people who are incarcerated pursue education while in prison, only 7% complete a certificate and 2% complete an associate’s degree during their sentence.[28]
When we consider that the average prison inmate with a job working a for state-owned businesses earn between 33 cents and $1.41 per hour[33] and people with criminal records are ineligible for many scholarships, it is no wonder many incarcerated people can not afford a college education and are therefore dependent on publicly subsidized education in order to further their education.
The data shows that when academic and vocational classes are available in prisons, incarcerated women use education to their advantage. After the implementation of the Second Chance Pell Program (SCP), it was found that 15% of incarcerated women were enrolled in a college program while 7% earned a credential in 2021.[6] Researchers presume that the reason women appear to earn credentials at half of their enrollment rates has to do with disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic and that women are completing their credentials after being released, which research is not keen to keep track of once they have served their sentences.[6]
A follow-up report to these findings found that between 2021 and 2022, incarcerated women made up 13% of incarcerated individuals enrolled in SCP and 11% of those who completed credentials.[36] This disparity could be due to the type of credentials being offered by a correctional facility (i.e. whether it be a certificate or a bachelor’s degree) since certain credentials may take more time to complete than others.[36] Regardless, incarcerated women make up a larger proportion of the incarcerated population enrolled in Federal Pell Grant-sponsored educational programs than they make up the incarcerated population to begin with.[39]
College Pell Grants Can Affect Social Outcomes for Incarcerated Women
If Pell Grants persist in their availability to incarcerated populations, they could change socioeconomic outcomes immensely for formerly incarcerated women. Not only could Pell Grants improve educational attainment, and consequently, income among incarcerated women,[31] but it could improve health and personal well-being, employment outcomes, recidivism rates, and break generational cycles.
Health and Well-being
The importance of education on health for incarcerated women is crucial to address. Approximately 80% of women in prison have a diagnosed psychological issue.[1] Women in prison are five times more likely to experience mental health difficulties than women in the general population.[38] Adults who do not have higher education are more likely to smoke and have an unhealthy diet, and be sedentary than those who do have higher education.[10][22][30][35] Living an inactive lifestyle is tied to poorer mental health, so it is in the best interest of incarcerated women to be educated.[14] This way, they are more informed about lifestyle habits that hinder their health and can consciously improve their well-being.
Employment Rates
In 2008, it was estimated that 43.6% of formerly incarcerated black women and 23.3% of formerly incarcerated white women were unemployed.[16] To put this into perspective, this was during the 2008 Great Recession, where 11.7% of women, including 15.3% of black women and 11.1% of white women were unemployed in the general U.S. population.[41] This highlights not only economic disparities, but racial disparities among the formerly incarcerated. While we are not living in the same recession, life post-COVID has left its mark across many fields as many jobs have transitioned between in-person to remote and hybrid models. Additionally, COVID-19 has not prevented growing education expectations in labor-market demands. In fact, it is estimated that 70% of jobs will require college education by 2027.[9] Although many incarcerated women may not complete their degrees while in prison, they can still gain valuable benefits from their college experience, including improved employment opportunities and higher wages compared to peers without any college experience.
Recidivism Rates
It is estimated that 50% of formerly incarcerated women recidivate.[12] Research shows that higher education reduces recidivism rates[7]–one study found that prison education programs reduce recidivism rates by as much as 43%.[11][15] This is because education can give inmates the social facilities to work cooperatively with others, giving them the ability to interact prosocially in other settings and thus, reduce likelihood to offend again.[8][15] The changes in offending rates and positive social change extend beyond just incarcerated women.
Breaking Generational Curses
An analysis by the Prison Policy Initiative found that 72% of women who are incarcerated earned below the poverty line before the beginning of their sentences.[32] It should be noted that more than half of incarcerated women are parents.[24] A mother’s level of education is the strongest predictor of cognitive development in children and is correlated with their likelihood of attaining a college education.[20][2] Given that education is closely tied with income level, incarcerated women who have children and earn college degrees may improve the likelihood that their children will go to college and subsequently also earn more.[5][31] Lastly, Pell Grants for incarcerated women could serve as a protective factor by reducing the likelihood that their children may offend.[15]
Future Considerations
For all the reasons mentioned previously, it is clear that Federal Pell Grants stand to benefit one of the most marginalized groups in the U.S. Still, there is room for improvement.
To demonstrate how, some minority groups are underrepresented amongst people in incarceration who were enrolled in Pell Grant-sponsored educational programs, and it can vary based on gender. Hispanic women make up 19% of the prison population, but only 6% of those who accessed education programs in prison with Pell Grants between 2021-2022.[36] This disparity is similar for incarcerated Hispanic men.[36] Incarcerated African-American women attend Pell Grant programs at a slightly higher rate than the proportion of the incarcerated women population that they make up, while their male counterparts are underrepresented in Pell Grant educational programs by 6%.[36] Native American women are slightly underrepresented in these programs by 1%.[36] Incarcerated white women on the other hand, are overrepresented in Pell Grant programs by 18%.[36]
In short, efforts to promote college education in prisons that incarcerate women need to address racial equity by encouraging women of color–especially Hispanic women–to access resources such as Federal Pell Grants to fund their education. If not, these efforts will only uphold underrepresentation and further marginalization.
This is critical because Hispanic women are the most disenfranchised by the gender wage gap.[40] In 2021, when controlling for similar positions, a report found that Hispanic women and Native American women both make 58 cents relative to every dollar non-Hispanic white men make.[40] Black women make 63 cents per dollar a non-Hispanic white man makes.[40] White women make 79 cents relative to every dollar non-Hispanic white men make.[40] There are many factors which experts contend contribute to the gender pay gap, but encouraging women–especially women of color–to advocate for themselves and seek the means for a higher income by continuing with their education is a good place to start. It’s worth noting that furthering education beyond a high school diploma helps to close this wage gap.[40]
Yet another issue to be addressed is prejudiced hiring practices. It is well-documented that racial and ethnic minorities face discriminatory hiring practices. In one experiment, it was found that employers were more likely to call back or offer work positions to non-Hispanic white male job applicants with criminal records than African-American or Hispanic male applicants who did not have criminal records.[29] In another study, formerly incarcerated Latinas and African-American women were less likely to get a positive response from an employer when applying to a job than formerly incarcerated white women.[25] The inequitable hardship that formerly incarcerated racial minority women in particular face when it comes to job seeking cannot be understated. Education–however helpful on its own–is not enough to change systemic issues stemming from internal biases and inadequate effort towards restorative justice.
In summary, Federal Pell Grants recently permitted for people in incarceration can offer higher education which would increase income to formerly incarcerated women. Additionally, it could enhance physical and psychosocial health outcomes. Given that education could also improve employment, these factors in combination help to lower recidivism rates among those who complete their academic credentials. This has the double benefit of not only rectifying the lives of formerly incarcerated women, but it also has the potential to break harmful generational cycles such as poverty and involvement in criminal behavior in their kids’ lifetimes. The barriers to these benefits is the inequitable utilization of Pell Grants across racial minority groups as well as implicit hiring biases against minorities and more overt biases against those with criminal records. Federal Pell Grants, while monumental in their impact, are just a preliminary solution in closing the gaps between incarcerated women and a life of liberty and justice for all.
References
[1] “10 Things to know about women in prison.” (2021). World Health Organization . www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/health-determinants/prisons-and-health/focus-areas/womens-health/10-things-to-know-about-women-in-prison
[2] Augustine, J. M. (2017). Increased educational attainment among U.S. mothers and their children’s academic expectations. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 52, 15–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2017.08.001
[3] Calculating Pell Grant Lifetime Eligibility Used. (n.d.). StudentAid.Gov; Federal Student Aid. Retrieved April 14, 2024, from https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/grants/pell/calculate-eligibility
[4] Castro, E., Howard, M., Ferguson Mimms, L., & Zolensky, R. (2024, February 13). Improving prison education programs: Experts discuss the expansion of Pell Grants for incarcerated students. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/improving-prison-education-programs-experts-discuss-the-expansion-of-pell-grants-for-incarcerated-students/
[5] Cataldi, E. F., Bennett, C. T., Chen, Xianglei, & RTI International. (2018). First-generation students: College access, persistence, and postbachelor’s outcomes (NCES 2018421). NCES. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018421.pdf
[6] Chesnut, K., Taber, N., & Quintana , J. (2022). Second Chance Pell: Five Years of Expanding Higher Education Programs in Prisons, 2016–2021. Vera Institute. https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/second-chance-pell-five-years-of-expanding-access-to-education-in-prison-2016-2021.pdf?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_4318218_nl_Daily-Briefing_date_20220523&cid=db&source=ams&sourceid=
[7] Choate, B. R., & Normore, A. H. (2013). Leadership’s role in reducing jail violence and recidivism. In A. H. Normore & N. Erbe (Eds.), Advances in Educational Administration (Vol. 20, pp. 163–180). Emerald Group Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3660(2013)0000020009
[8] Cobbina, J. E. (2010). Reintegration success and failure: Factors impacting reintegration among incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 49(3), 210–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/10509671003666602
