College-in-prison programs are positioned to expand substantially under the reinstatement of Pell Grant eligibility for people in prison. While this change will enable more students who have been systemically excluded from higher education to attend college, degree completion is rare during incarceration and post-release. Student perspectives can…

Nontuition expenses--including housing, food, transportation, and miscellaneous expenses, in addition to books and supplies--constitute a significant financial burden for many students pursuing higher education, even if they receive grant aid to help them pay tuition and fees. Well-designed policy interventions at both the federal and state levels…

When the federal government banned incarcerated students from accessing Pell Grants in the mid-1990s, a new model for supporting Higher Education in Prison (HEP) programs emerged--utilizing Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) as third-party facilitators to fill the gaps left behind in the absence of federal financial aid. With the long-awaited…

Funding for community colleges varies significantly, even within the same state. Several factors account for these differences, including more generous funding for smaller institutions to compensate for their higher costs per student, unequal local funding from property tax revenues, and political forces. In theory, this variation could lead to…

The United States faces an unprecedented mental health crisis, with youth and young adults at the center. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 50 percent of college students reported at least one mental health concern. The COVID-19 pandemic notably exacerbated these issues and underscored the urgent need to identify and implement ways to…

The United States faces an unprecedented mental health crisis, with youth and young adults at the center. Even before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, nearly 50 percent of college students reported at least one mental health concern. Without adequate mental health support, college students, including those at community colleges,…

Many college students struggle to make ends meet while enrolled and sometimes must turn to a wide variety of safety net resources, including official government programs, borrowing from family, and selling belongings. This brief examines data from 63,751 undergraduate students who responded to Trellis' Fall 2021 Student Financial Wellness Survey…

The Newark Opportunity Youth Network (NOYN) contracted with the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the youth workforce development system within the state. The study documents how the youth workforce system developed in New Jersey since the federal…

States and the federal government have long provided substantial financial support for higher education, but in recent years, their respective levels of contribution have shifted significantly. Given the essential role that government funding plays in higher education access and operations, policymakers across the nation frequently face difficult…

More states are using performance-based funding (PBF) systems in an effort to incentivize public colleges to operate more effectively. Responding to concerns about equity, states are also adopting provisions that encourage colleges to serve more students who at risk of not completing college. In this paper, I examine whether PBF policies in…

Workers today increasingly need postsecondary education to access consistent employment and livable wages, with an estimated 65 percent of jobs requiring some form of postsecondary credential as of 2020. The financial barriers to higher education are particularly high for Black Americans, who on average carry less than a quarter of the familial…

Using a phenomenological method, this study explored the higher-education affordability perceptions of a purposively-collected group of 19 students at the pseudonymous Crestview Community College (CCC) in Colorado. The defining themes of the study were: (a) knowledge of the College Opportunity Fund (COF) program and perceptions of higher-education…

The Federal Pell Grant program, authorized by Title IV-A-1 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, (HEA; P.L. 89-329), as amended, is the single largest source of federal grant aid supporting undergraduate students. The program provided approximately $29 billion in aid to approximately 7.2 million undergraduate students in FY2017. Pell Grants are…

Workforce development in the United States today is spread across higher education institutions (primarily public two-year and for-profit colleges), labor market institutions, and workplaces, with public funding from a range of sources. But outcomes for students and workers are weaker than they could be, especially among disadvantaged students and…

This article takes up the central question of how college-level prison education programs should be justified and defended. Author Patrick Filipe Conway argues that the focus on recidivism rates as justification for major initiatives like the Second Chance Pell Program and New York governor Andrew Cuomo's Right Priorities initiative is misguided…