Title: Policymakers Role in Expanding Prison Education Access
Authors: Jennifer Thomsen and Shytance Wren
Source: Education Commission of the States
A June 2025 report from the Education Commission of the States outlined ways in which state policy actors can expand access to prison education and therefore reduce likelihood for recidivism and incarceration costs.
Policymakers’ Role in Expanding Prison Education Access summarized findings from an 18-month long community of practice which included stakeholders representing state education policy leaders, leaders from corrections departments, higher education prison program directors, policy leaders, and researchers. The community of practice highlighted key barriers faced by incarcerated learners and produced policy suggestions to remediate these barriers to education.
Among the report’s key findings:
Prison education is a cost-saving measure. Every one dollar spent on prison education saves four to five dollars in incarceration costs.
Inefficient governance in prison education programs creates a lack of access for incarcerated learners and a lack of data for policymakers to improve programs. A key consideration in addressing this issue is to review what level of governance the best policies would come from (i.e.: from the governor by executive order).
Access to financial aid is often limited for incarcerated individuals. One way to mitigate this barrier is to review existing state financial aid programs that prohibit incarcerated individuals from receiving aid.
Inconsistency in access to student support prevents continued learning. A consideration for state leaders to address this inconsistency is to strengthen partnerships with community colleges and job training programs to ensure adequate reentry guidance for incarcerated learners.
The report concludes that expanding access to prison education is most efficient when state policymakers address governance, financial aid access, and student supports for incarcerated learners.
When people hear that I teach sociology in a maximum-security prison, they often ask if I’m afraid. Then they assume I enter the prison, share knowledge and transform incarcerated students. That’s not the story I’m telling. The real transformation isn’t theirs. It’s mine.
For more than a decade, I have facilitated prison programs and worked with individuals who have been impacted by the justice system. For the past three years, I have made the hour-long drive, passed barbed-wire fences, walked through metal detectors and taken the escorted journey to the education wing of a Connecticut state prison to teach college-level sociology.
My desire to work with people in prison honors those who protected me, allowing me to survive, thrive and give something back. I grew up in Harlem during the height of the crack cocaine epidemic. Public housing was my home. The stench of urine in the elevators, the hunger-inducing aroma of fried food wafting through the hallways, the ever-present sound of sirens and the fear of dying young all shaped my early years. Yet, amid these challenges, I also experienced love and protection.
Many of the older guys on my block were deeply involved in street life. However, they saw something in me. They never attempted to pull me into their activities. Instead, they ensured I stayed away. They often said, “Nah, you’re smart. You’re gonna do something with your life.” That kind of protection and love doesn’t appear in statistics or stories about the hood, but it saved me.
I didn’t make it out because I was exceptional. I made it because people believed in me. They helped me imagine a different life. I carry their love with me when I step into that prison classroom. I teach because I owe a debt—not in a way that burdens me, but in a way that allows me to walk in my purpose and see people through the same lens of possibility that allowed me to live my dreams.
Entering the prison each week requires mental preparation. Before the lesson begins, I go through multiple security checks. Doors buzz open and lock behind me. I never get comfortable with the experience, even though I know I will leave at the end of class. I often describe teaching in prison as a beautiful-sad experience. It’s beautiful because of the energy and connection in the classroom. It’s sad because many of my students may never see life beyond the gates.
These men, some of whom have already served decades, come ready to engage. We break down theories of race, class, power, socialization, patriarchy and other related concepts. We analyze films, question systems and interrogate assumptions. But what stays with me most are the unscripted moments, like when someone connects a sociological theory to their own story and says, “This sounds like what happened to me.”
One of the most unforgettable moments came during a group debate assignment. I divided the class into small groups and asked them to analyze a text using different sociological theories. I stepped back and simply observed. I saw a group of 15 men serving long sentences, passionately debating whether structural strain theory, social learning theory or a Marxist conflict perspective was the best lens for analysis. These weren’t surface-level conversations. They were sharp, layered and theoretically rigorous. At that moment, I told them, “This is what the world doesn’t get to see.”
People carry assumptions about incarcerated individuals and what they are capable of. But they don’t see these men breaking down theories, challenging one another and demonstrating intellectual brilliance. We cannot record inside the prison, so moments like this remain confined to the room. But they are real. And they matter.
Another day, I asked students to reflect on the last time they cried or heard someone say, “I love you.” One student responded, “I don’t cry. Crying doesn’t change anything.” A week later, after completing an assignment to write a letter to his younger self, that same student began reading aloud to his 8-year-old self and broke down in tears. No one laughed. No one turned away. The other men gave him their attention, encouragement and support. In that room, we created a space where his vulnerability was met with care, even inside the walls of a prison.
These experiences forced me to confront my purpose. I stopped seeing myself solely as a professor or administrator. I reflected on what it means to serve and show up for people who’ve been pushed to the edges of society. I began to question the boundaries we draw between campus and community. Universities, especially those with the most resources, need to be more than institutions of learning for those lucky enough to be admitted. We are called to be and do more.
Throughout my career, I’ve worked to ensure my spheres of influence extend beyond the edge of campus. I’ve leveraged my position to build bridges by connecting faculty and students to re-entry programs, supporting formerly incarcerated scholars and creating opportunities for others to teach inside. Teaching in prison has made me more grounded. As a sociologist, I am keenly aware of how little separates my students’ lives from mine and how my path could have easily been theirs.
The United States leads the world in incarceration, holding more than 20 percent of the world’s prisoners despite representing less than 5 percent of the world’s population. According to the Prison Policy Initiative and the American Civil Liberties Union, many incarcerated people come from overpoliced, underresourced communities like the one I grew up in.
Yet even with this reality, some argue that people in prison don’t deserve education—that offering college courses to incarcerated individuals is a misuse of resources. I’ve heard those arguments, and I reject them. Education in prison isn’t special treatment. It’s human dignity. It’s recognizing that people can and do change when given the tools to reflect, grow and imagine a life beyond a perpetual existence in survival mode.
If higher education is serious about equity and access, we cannot limit our classrooms to students with perfect transcripts and traditional résumés. The men I teach do not need saving. They need space to grow, question and contribute. And our institutions need them, because any university that claims to care about justice, resilience or humanity cannot ignore the people our country has locked away.
Every day, I am reminded that none of my accomplishments happened in isolation. I think about what it means to repay a debt on which you cannot put a dollar amount. I think about honoring those who believed in me before I believed in myself. I’ve stood on the shoulders of people who never had the opportunities I did. I carry their investment into every space I enter, especially those where others have been forgotten.
One of the lessons I’ve held onto is this: The gifts we have are not for us to keep. They’re meant to be shared. Teaching in prison is my way of honoring that truth.
Don C. Sawyer III is an associate professor of sociology and vice president of diversity, inclusion and belonging at Fairfield University.
Wayne State University will offer incarcerated people the opportunity to enroll in a bachelor’s of sociology starting this fall.
Wayne State University
With the reinstatement of Pell Grant eligibility for incarcerated individuals in 2023, more colleges have launched or restarted prison education programs. Wayne State University in Michigan will join their ranks this fall, offering a bachelor’s degree to incarcerated individuals for the first time.
Twenty-five students will join the inaugural cohort in August, and the university is forging ahead with program plans despite looming Pell Grant cuts.
What’s the need: Twenty-five percent of formerly incarcerated people have no high school diploma, and 20 percent have only a high school diploma, compared to the 91 percent of Americans who have attained at least that credential. “We know that today’s workforce, much of it requires a college education, so it’s almost a necessary criterion to earn a living wage in today’s society,” said Michelle Jacobs, a professor of sociology and Wayne State’s Prison Education Program lead.
While many incarcerated individuals express an interest in postsecondary education, college often gets placed on the back burner after they leave prison as they focus on more pressing challenges, such as meeting basic needs and providing for themselves, Jacobs said. Higher education–in–prison programs help students get a head start on reclaiming their lives after they are released.
The initiative also ties into Wayne State president Kimberly Andrews Espy’s Prosperity Agenda for the Detroit area, which includes supporting economic mobility for students, improving the health of urban neighborhoods and fostering innovation in the local economy.
Individuals who participate in postsecondary education programs while in prison are 48 percent less likely to be reincarcerated than those who don’t, and they are more likely to get a job after their release. Research also shows that education-in-prison programs not only benefit the individual but also increase safety in prison settings and can improve families’ socioeconomic mobility.
“One of our goals for the program is to empower families in low-income communities that have been disproportionately impacted [by mass incarceration],” Jacobs said.
How it works: Wayne State’s Prison Education Program will enroll 25 incarcerated men at the Macomb Correctional Facility in Lenox, Mich., about 35 miles northeast of the university.
To be considered, applicants have to be at least five years from their earliest release date, giving them time to finish the program, and they must complete an essay outlining why they want to participate.
All courses will be delivered in person and the university will provide any school supplies or resources the students need for their coursework, including pens, paper and dictionaries. Students have to complete paper applications and FAFSA forms, so staff will assist with that process.
Program participants will complete a degree in sociology, as well as a range of general education courses, similar to their on-campus peers. Students can also opt in to an entrepreneurship and innovation minor.
Both programs are designed to support the unique experiences of incarcerated people, Jacobs said.
“I’m extremely biased towards sociology, and I think that benefits everyone,” Jacobs said. “I think that incarcerated individuals can benefit so much, not only in terms of understanding the broader structures that have impacted their own realities, but also on that interactional level … I think that’ll be really helpful for them as they’re navigating their lives postrelease.”
Faculty members from across the university will serve as instructors.
Facing headwinds: Since beginning the project, Wayne State has encountered various challenges.
The initial plan was to use donor funding to kick off the program, but officials had to pivot to relying on Pell dollars and money from the Michigan Department of Corrections to cover student tuition. Then, reorganization at the federal Department of Education and a lack of staff stalled approval of the program. Changes to the Pell Grant may further impede the program’s future.
Despite the obstacles, Jacobs and her team are pushing on.
“Once we started working on it, I couldn’t let it go,” Jacobs said. “I deeply believe in the transformative power of education, and I also deeply believe that there is an amazing among of talent and wit and love and humor and expertise already in carceral settings … I just made a decision that we will forge ahead regardless of what is happening at the federal level—while, of course, paying attention to it.”
Wayne State staff received advice and support in establishing the program from the Michigan Consortium for Higher Education in Prison. “It’s very collaborative instead of competitive, which is unique for academic spaces, and I appreciate it so much,” Jacobs said.
Next steps: Jacobs and her team are currently reviewing student applications to select the inaugural cohort, with plans to enroll another cohort in fall 2026.
Before classes start this August, participating faculty and students will both complete an orientation. The faculty orientation will provide instructors with professional development that helps prepare them to teach inside a prison, supported by a student organization on campus focused on criminal justice reform.
Students will be given college-readiness support, as well as access to academic and support resources similar to those offered on campus.
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Hancy Maxis spent 17 years incarcerated in New York prisons. He knew that he needed to have a plan for when he got out.
“Once I am back in New York City, once I am back in the economy, how will I be marketable?” he said. “For me, math was that pathway.”
In 2015, Maxis completed a bachelor’s degree in math through the Bard Prison Initiative, an accredited college-in-prison program. He wrote his senior project about how to use game theory to advance health care equity, after observing the disjointed care his mom received when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. (She’s now recovered.)
When he was released in 2018, Maxis immediately applied for a master’s program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. He graduated and now works as the assistant director of operations at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. He helped guide the hospital’s response to Covid.
Maxis is one of many people I’ve spoken to in recent years while reporting on the role that learning math can play in the lives of those who are incarcerated. Math literacy often contributes to economic success: A 2021 study of more than 5,500 adults found that participants made $4,062 more per year for each correct answer on an eight-question math test.
While there don’t appear to be any studies specifically on the effect of math education for people in prison, a pile of research shows that prison education programs lower recidivism rates among participants and increase their chances of employment after they’re released.
Hancy Maxis spent 17 years incarcerated in New York prisons. He now works as the assistant director of operations at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. Credit: Yunuen Bonaparte for The Hechinger Report
Plus, math — and education in general — can be empowering. A 2022 study found that women in prison education programs reported higher self-esteem, a greater sense of belonging and more hope for the future than women who had never been incarcerated and had not completed post-secondary education.
Yet many people who enter prison have limited math skills and have had poor relationships with math in school. More than half (52 percent) of those incarcerated in U.S. prisons lack basic numeracy skills, such as the ability to do multiplication with larger numbers, long division or interpret simple graphs, according to the most recent numbers from the National Center for Educational Statistics. The absence of these basic skills is even more pronounced among Black and Hispanic people in prison, who make up more than half of those incarcerated in federal prisons.
In my reporting, I discovered that there are few programs offering math instruction in prison, and those that do exist typically include few participants. Bard’s highly competitive program, for example, is supported primarily through private donations, and is limited to seven of New York’s 42 prisons. The recent expansion of federal Pell Grants to individuals who are incarcerated presents an opportunity for more people in prison to get these basic skills and better their chances for employment after release.
Alyssa Knight, executive director of the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound, which she co-founded while incarcerated, said that for years, educational opportunities in prison were created primarily by people who were incarcerated, who wrote to professors and educators to ask if they might send materials or teach inside the prison. But public recognition of the value of prison education, including math, is rising, and the Pell Grant expansion and state-level legislationhave made it easier for colleges to set up programs for people serving time. Now, Knight said, “Colleges are seeking prisons.”
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Jeffrey Abramowitz understands firsthand how math can help someone after prison. After completing a five-year stint in a federal prison, his first post-prison job was teaching math to adults who were preparing to take the GED exam.
Fast forward nearly a decade, and Abramowitz is now the CEO of The Petey Greene Program, an organization that provides one-on-one tutoring, educational supports and programs in reading, writing and now math, to help people in prison and who have left prison receive the necessary education requirements for a high school diploma, college acceptance or career credentials.
The average Petey Greene student’s math skills are at a fourth- or fifth-grade level, according to Abramowitz, which is in line with the average for “justice-impacted” learners; the students tend to struggle with basic math such as addition and multiplication.
“You can’t be successful within most industries without being able to read, write and do basic math,” Abramowitz said. “We’re starting to see more blended programs that help people find a career pathway when they come home — and the center of all this is math and reading.”
Abramowitz and his team noticed this lack of math skills particularly among students in vocational training programs, such as carpentry, heating and cooling and commercial driving. To qualify to work in these fields, these students often need to pass a licensing test, requiring math and reading knowledge.
The nonprofit offers “integrated education training” to help students learn the relevant math for their professions. For instance, a carpentry teacher will teach students how to use a saw in or near a classroom where a math teacher explains fractions and how they relate to the measurements needed to cut a piece of wood.
“They may be able to do the task fine, but they can’t pass the test because they don’t know the math,” Abramowitz said.
Math helped Paul Morton after he left prison, he told me. When he began his 10.5 years in prison, he only could do GED-level math. After coming across an introductory physics book in the third year of his time in prison, he realized he didn’t have the math skills needed for the science described in it.
He asked his family to send him math textbooks and, over the seven years until his release, taught himself algebra and calculus.
The recent expansion of federal Pell Grants to individuals who are incarcerated presents an opportunity for more people in prison to get these basic skills and better their chances for employment after release. Credit: Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post via Getty Images
“I relentlessly spent six hours on one problem one day,” he said. “I was determined to do it, to get it right.”
I met Morton through the organization the Prison Mathematics Project, which helped him develop his math knowledge inside prison by connecting him with an outside mathematician. After his release from a New York prison in 2023, he moved to Rochester, New York, and is hoping to take the actuarial exam, which requires a lot of math. He continues to study differential equations on his own.
The Prison Mathematics Project delivers math materials and programs to people in prison, and connects them with mathematicians as mentors. (It also brings math professors, educators and enthusiasts to meet program participants through “Pi Day” events; I attended one such event in 2023 when I produced a podcast episode about the program, and the organization paid for my travel and accommodations.)
The organization was started in 2015 by Christopher Havens, who was then incarcerated at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. Havens’ interest in math puzzles, and then in algebra, calculus and other areas of mathematics, was ignited early in his 25-year- term when a prison volunteer slid some sudoku puzzles under his door.
“I had noticed all these changes happening inside of me,” Havens told me. “My whole life, I was searching for that beauty through drugs and social acceptance … When I found real beauty [in math], it got me to practice introspection.”
As he fell in love with math, he started corresponding with mathematicians to help him solve problems, and talking to other men at the prison to get them interested too. He created a network of math resources for people in prisons, which became the Prison Mathematics Project.
The group’s website says it helps people in prison use math to help with “rebuilding their lives both during and after their incarceration.”
But Ben Jeffers, its executive director, has noticed that the message doesn’t connect with everyone in prison. Among the 299 Prison Mathematics Project participants on whom the program has data, the majority — 56 percent — are white, he told me, while 25 percent are Black, 10 percent are Hispanic, 2 percent are Asian and 6 percent are another race or identity. Ninety-three percent of project participants are male.
Yet just 30 percent of the U.S. prison population is white, while 35 percent of those incarcerated are Black, 31 percent are Hispanic and 4 percent are of other races, according to the United State Sentencing Commission. (The racial makeup of the program’s 18 female participants at women’s facilities is much more in line with that of the prison population at large.)
“[It’s] the same issues that you have like in any classroom in higher education,” said Jeffers, who is finishing his master’s in math in Italy. “At the university level and beyond, every single class is majority white male.”
He noted that anxiety about math tends to be more acute among women and people of any gender who are Black, Hispanic, or from other underrepresented groups, and may keep them from signing up for the program.
Sherry Smith understands that kind of anxiety. She didn’t even want to step foot into a math class. When she arrived at Southern Maine Women’s Reentry Center in December 2021, she was 51, had left high school when she was 16, and had only attended two weeks of a ninth grade math class.
“I was embarrassed that I had dropped out,” she said. “I hated to disclose that to people.”
Smith decided to enroll in the prison’s GED program because she could do the classes one-on-one with a friendly and patient teacher. “It was my time,” she said. “Nobody else was listening, I could ask any question I needed.”
In just five months, Smith completed her GED math class. She said she cried on her last day. Since 2022, she’s been pursuing an associate’s degree in human services — from prison — through a remote program with Washington County Community College.
In Washington, Prison Mathematics Project founder Havens is finishing his sentence and continuing to study math. (Havens has been granted a clemency hearing and may be released as early as this year.) Since 2020, he has published four academic papers: three in math and one in sociology. He works remotely from prison as a staff research associate in cryptography at the University of California, Los Angeles, and wrote a math textbook about continued fractions.
Havens is still involved in the Prison Mathematics Project, but handed leadership of the program over to Jeffers in October 2023. Now run from outside the prison, it is easier for the program to bring resources and mentorship to incarcerated students.
“For 25 years of my life, I can learn something that I wouldn’t have the opportunity to learn in any other circumstances,” Havens said. “So I decided that I would, for the rest of my life, study mathematics.”
Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965 or [email protected].
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