Students in Women’s Prisons Face More Challenges Completing College Than Men

Experts agree that prisons and jails weren’t designed for women, leaving incarcerated people in women’s facilities with fewer opportunities and more challenges in a system designed for men. College in prison (CIP) programs are no exception.

Students in women’s prisons face limitations students in men’s prisons don’t, like program availability, physical space, over-discipline, and less time to finish programs.

BestColleges spoke with Ruth Delaney, initiative director for the Vera Institute of Justice’s Unlocking Potential project, which is working to improve college-in-prison access. Vera is a nonprofit focused on ending overcriminalization and mass incarceration of people of color, immigrants, and those experiencing poverty.

Women make up about 7% of the incarcerated population, and most states only have 1-3 women’s prisons compared to dozens of men’s prisons. Despite making up only 7% of the incarcerated population, women make up 15% of all incarcerated students — but only 7% of the credentials earned.

More programs exist at men’s prisons than at women’s prisons. If an incarcerated person in a men’s prison wants to transfer to a prison with a CIP program, they may be able to. Incarcerated people at women’s prisons don’t always have the same opportunities.

Vera studied CIP access and completion to assess equity in these programs. Their research found that only 21 states have adequate equity in CIP programs between incarcerated men and women. However, 17 states are currently developing equity, and 11 are inadequate.

The Alliance for Higher Education in Prison found that most degrees offered in all CIP programs are associate degrees, followed by bachelor’s degrees at less than half the number. Only six provided master’s degrees. Most programs offer certificates, the most popular credentials earned.

The alliance found:

The U.S. government created the Pell Grant in 1972 to help students afford a college education. This financial assistance was available to incarcerated students as well until 1994.

In 2016, the Second Chance Pell Experiment of CIP Pell Grant-eligible programs began for incarcerated students. The initiative, once limited to a set number of programs, went nationwide in 2023.

Delaney said non-Pell-eligible programs historically offered pink collar jobs — jobs that women of color have historically earned certificates for and don’t pay much more than those that require a high school degree, like:

However, CIP programs have moved away from focusing on pink-collar jobs and introduced more equitable programs. For example, the state of Michigan recently expanded career technical education centers, called vocational villages, to women.

Knowing that people coming out of prison are going to have a harder time getting work and are likely to be paid less than other people, we want to see that they’re getting access to programs that at least set them up for what should be a living wage job, Delaney said.

According to Delaney, there’s a balance between offering programs students are interested in and not precluding opportunity by limiting what’s available. Compared to massive program selections at colleges and universities, most CIP programs only provide a handful of degree/credential programs.

Space is one of the biggest limiters to CIP programs. Since most states only have one or two women’s prisons, if there’s not a good classroom space, that limits the types of programs, if any, that a prison can host.

Other limiting factors include disproportionate discipline, less time spent incarcerated, and having children.

Delaney told BestColleges that incarcerated people in women’s prisons are treated the same as people in men’s prisons, which leads to more violation reports.

Delaney said that because the prison system is 90% men, system norms are set up in relation to men and how men socialize. For example, culturally, women use space differently than men and talk closer than men.

If you’re taught over and over again that someone coming close to you means they’re a threat and that something violent is about to happen, it’s like corrections officers are repeatedly [thinking] something dangerous is about to happen, when a woman’s just coming over to speak to them, Delaney explained.

That can result in women being more likely to be written up in prison for rule violations that are very low level, like talking back to a corrections officer or having too many objects in their cells.

Once violations stack up, incarcerated people can become ineligible for college programs, which are considered privilege programs.

Delaney said women are also more likely to leave prison before finishing their degree.

Women typically receive shorter sentences than men, who average about three years of incarceration. She said most CIP programs are part time since full-time programs can conflict with prison schedules. A part-time associate degree can take 4-6 years to complete, and a bachelor’s degree can take 8-10 years.

Since Pell-eligible students may leave their programs before they finish, they can run into several problems: unsatisfactory academic progress for financial aid eligibility, no credit for leaving a class in the middle of the semester, and running out of Pell eligibility.

The Pell Grant is available for six years or 600% of funding if students enroll full time. Delaney says, however, that those limits still result in students maxing out their financial aid before earning their degree.

Some colleges are fixing that issue with groups that aid students in continuing college once they return home. Advisers can assist these students by helping them transfer to a local institution and informing them of ways to lose the least amount of credits possible.

When many people in women’s prisons go home, their goal is to get their families back together, Delaney said.

According to Vera, 58% of women in prison and almost 80% of women in jails are mothers. Once these mothers exit prison, they may lose all the momentum they had to go to college and set it on the back burner.

Delaney said colleges need to be mindful of formerly incarcerated mothers and people from women’s prisons who may have credits that are years old or from different institutions.

Formerly incarcerated people often face stigmas and closed doors. Delaney said that is crystallized in higher education through the criminal history checkboxes on college applications.

The big thing I think that we hear again and again is to have an open-door policy so that someone may come back after a break in time and say, I’m ready now, Delaney said.

And to be ready to advise someone who may have credits that are a couple of years old or things have changed, they want to go in a different direction now to be really smart about how to build those credits toward a degree.

Vera reported that since the Pell Grant pilot program began eight years ago, over 45,000 incarcerated people have enrolled in CIP programs, over 18,000 have earned credentials, and over 1,000 have earned bachelor’s degrees.

All of this happened despite the COVID-19 disruptions to both corrections and higher ed practice. I think what we see in Second Chance Pell is that it really paved the way for Pell restoration, which took effect last summer, Delaney told BestColleges. We now know a lot about how to run college courses in prison.

According to the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, there were 396 known CIP programs as of 2020-21, up from 372 the previous year, among 710 correctional facilities nationwide.

Of the 710, 97 women’s CIP program facilities make up more than 16% of all CIP program facilities. There are also 29 facilities for both men and women with postsecondary education.

Even though a lot has been accomplished in the short amount of time since incarcerated students nationwide became eligible for the Pell Grant last year, Delaney said there’s still more to be done.

Since the Pell Grant expansion, only California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt’s CIP program has been approved for Pell Grant funding, with other universities waiting for the Department of Education’s approval.

Delaney hopes to see colleges bring the whole college experience to prison, not just classes. She’s excited to see how colleges invest in resources available to any enrolled student, especially since incarcerated students pay tuition.

Delaney told BestColleges that Vera wants to see a program where everyone in a women’s prison can enroll, regardless of education level and college literacy.

A program should encourage students to attend college and inform them of the opportunities, she said. These CIP programs are small, so colleges need to consider reaching out to incarcerated students still completing their GED requirements to get them thinking about college as soon as possible.

The fact that within a relatively short period, all of these states got their processes ready and are looking to get new colleges working in their facilities is very encouraging to me that we are going to see more colleges, more people enrolling, more people completing and coming out and doing great things with their degrees.