College on the Margins: A Comprehensive Case Study of Three College-in-Prison Programs in the Southern United States

Research has well documented the far-reaching benefits of providing educational opportunities for individuals who are incarcerated, applicable to the students themselves and society. Given the many benefits, it is encouraging that access to U.S. Pell Grants for incarcerated students was restored in July 2023—the first time in nearly 30 years that need-based federal postsecondary financial aid was available to individuals in U.S. prisons. Although Pell Restoration enables an increasing number of colleges and universities to provide higher-education-in-prison (HEP) programs, this funding guarantees nothing about the quality and rigor of programming. In fact, relatively little is known about the nature, scope, and quality of HEP programs within the United States, and it is both timely and important to deeply examine these topics. The present study is a critical qualitative case study of three college-in-prison programs in the southern United States. To interrogate the nature and quality of the programs, this study explores the experiences and practices of program faculty and directors, drawing from research and scholarship in education and the behavioral sciences to examine two key areas: faculty training and the educational experiences made available to students. Multiple forms of data were collected, and two main findings emerged: (a) faculty training is piecemeal and limited, and (b) the educational experiences made available in the three programs are simultaneously empowering and disempowering. Using Ladson-Billings’s concept of the education debt (including its historical, moral, and economic underpinnings), this study highlights that the three college-in-prison programs—like many HEP programs across the United States—both contribute to and challenge the education debt.