Tiant Mitchell, 36, is earning a bachelor’s degree at Villanova University while incarcerated at State Correctional Institution, Phoenix. (Courtesy photo)
Federal grants to attend college are now available to people in prison, but with few Pa. colleges stepping up, the number of students is small.
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Tiant Mitchell tried attending college almost 20 years ago. The then-teenager from Braddock had recently been released from juvenile detention when he arrived at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and, looking back, Mitchell said he lacked the support he needed to adjust.
“I had the desire for better, but I wasn’t well-equipped to understand and navigate that journey,” he said. Several years later, he was sentenced to serve 30 to 60 years in prison for attempted murder and related charges. He’s incarcerated at State Correctional Institution [SCI], Phoenix, in Montgomery County, on the other side of the state.
But Mitchell, 36, is a college student once again. He’s been enrolled at Villanova University for the last year, where he’s pursuing a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts. He’s taken classes in business and pharmacology and is “adamant” about maintaining his 4.0 grade-point average. These days, “everybody just calls me Professor Mitch,” he said.
Last year, people incarcerated in the U.S. became eligible for Pell Grants, a form of federal financial aid providing up to $7,395 a year to low-income students. The federal government prohibited incarcerated people from receiving the aid for nearly three decades, making degrees impossible for many due to the scant wages they earn inside. More than 750,000 incarcerated people are estimated to be eligible today.
A year later, opportunities for college degrees are still rare for incarcerated Pennsylvanians. While some degree programs have operated in Pennsylvania for years, none are offered by Pittsburgh-area universities. The Community College of Allegheny County is, so far, the only local institution that has applied this past year to launch a Pell-eligible program, according to the state Department of Corrections.
Advocates say college-in-prison programs make students more employable and less likely to reoffend upon release. This not only makes for safer neighborhoods but also strengthens communities more often touched by incarceration, they say. Beyond the societal benefits, they argue education is a human right that ensures incarcerated people are treated with dignity.
The promise of the Pell Grant restoration has, so far, met a slow-moving reality, even though there has historically been significant interest among incarcerated people. Only 140 people incarcerated in Pennsylvania state prisons participated in a Pell-funded program in the last year. Roughly 40,000 people are incarcerated in these facilities.
In the last year, the U.S. Department of Education has approved only one new Pell-eligible program, administered by California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. Small class sizes limit access to existing programs, which continue to be in-person, as the availability of technology is spotty.
There are other challenges, including for the students who make it off waitlists.
A report from The Vera Institute of Justice, a national nonprofit focused on ending mass incarceration, found that at least some of Pennsylvania’s incarcerated students lack access to library and research resources and do not receive academic and career advising each semester. There have also been barriers for students to continue their education upon release.
“We’ve learned how to deliver college courses in prison. We’ve gotten all the kinks out of that; we’re doing really well. What we haven’t really figured out is how to deliver all of those services, those auxiliary supports, that are built into going to college in a prison environment,” said Ruth Delaney, director of Vera’s Unlocking Potential initiative.
The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections is working to improve its IT infrastructure to provide more educational opportunities to students, Press Secretary Maria Bivens wrote in a statement. She added that advising is handled by university staff, not the prison.
Vera found that enrollment has not sufficiently aligned with the racial demographics of the state’s prison population. The institute also found that fewer than 10% of students enrolled in the last year completed a degree, which it deemed inadequate. The low completion rate indicates that a corrections agency could be moving students to another prison before they can complete their studies, Delaney said.
Bivens said students are chosen for the programs not by their race but by the time left on their sentence and their academic qualifications. Students will generally be transferred upon their request or because of “a security need,” she said.
In regards to the completion rate, Bivens said, “Cohorts are just beginning to graduate students and working toward degrees and certificates. We expect the completion percentage to rise as time progresses.”
Vera identified areas of improvement in every state that operates these programs, and many states shared Pennsylvania’s problems. Delaney also pointed to a few bright spots in the state, including the varied degree and certificate programs offered and the recent formation of a statewide consortium to advocate for improvements.
Mitchell called his in-prison studies “a great experience … but great doesn’t give the nuance.
“It’s been challenging; it’s been frustrating at times. But for me, personally, I choose to perceive the obstacles in a more positive light, as opportunities to do other things — opportunities to cultivate patience as opposed to things that eat away at my confidence to continue.”
Opportunities and challenges
At least five of Pennsylvania’s 23 state prisons housed college programs prior to the Pell restoration. Villanova, the University of Scranton and Eastern University offer associate’s degrees in liberal arts at SCI Phoenix, Dallas and Chester, respectively. Students can also earn a bachelor’s degree, in the same field, from Villanova.
Two prisons, SCI Muncy and Mahanoy, offer a certificate in rehabilitative justice from the Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania, Bloomsburg.
The programs are advertised to incarcerated people through flyers posted in the prisons and notices played on televisions inside. Mitchell learned of several programs, including Villanova’s, by checking out a bulletin board while incarcerated at SCI Albion, in Erie County.
To be eligible, the department requires that prospective students have a reading score above a certain threshold; have not had misconduct violations in the last year; will be at least six months away from their parole eligibility date when classes start; and, if needed, can transfer to the prisons where the programs are offered.
I hope, one day, that we can get to a place where we understand the benefits of programs like this.
TIANT MITCHELL, INCARCERATED STUDENT AT VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY
Mitchell transferred to SCI Phoenix for the Villanova program, even though it meant he’d be farther away from his family in Pittsburgh. The nearest in-prison degree program to Pittsburgh is around a four-hour drive away, in Luzerne County.
So far, he’s found several of his courses to be eye-opening, including one on local government taught by a city manager. He and other students struggled with the pharmacology class, but the prison helped create a study group.
The classes spark “a lot of engagement. You see a side of people that you don’t get to see in the trial,” Mitchell said. The students’ participation helps them gain critical thinking skills, he said, “which I don’t think we do all the time when we’re living in the criminal lifestyle.”
He and his peers have also encountered challenges. The state Department of Corrections prohibits paper materials from entering the prisons out of concern for contraband, and as a result, he said students sometimes haven’t received assignments. He said the prison’s security protocols, while understandable, have meant professors aren’t always able to teach on time, leading some students to believe classes have been canceled.
“If there’s no consistency in attendance, people’s motivation wanes,” he said.
These programs can also be “quite a shock to the system,” for the prisons, according to Christopher Haw, who directs Scranton’s program at SCI Dallas. Nine of Scranton’s first cohort of 16 students earned associate’s degrees last December. Haw infers that the high attrition came from the turbulence of installing a unique program in a system marked by familiarity.
“It has been tragic whenever we lose students, but we just have to keep charging forward,” he said. The second cohort has lost fewer students as the program has become normalized, he said, and 13 students are set to graduate in December. The university aims to have 22 students in its third cohort, the admissions process for which begins this week.
Bivens, of the Department of Corrections, said students are given guidelines to follow and are notified that misconduct could result in their removal from a program. The department “fully supports” the programs and “Inmates who believe they are being treated unfairly have the opportunity to voice their concerns through the established grievance process,” she said.
The Pell restoration hasn’t substantively changed the Scranton program’s operations, Haw said, but the influx of federal dollars has transformed it from a “sacrificial startup” to a “viable indefinite endeavor.” Previously, the program was funded only by the university and through grants.
A wait for new programs
Several other schools have begun the application process for new Pell-eligible programs, Bivens said. The Community College of Allegheny County was the only local institution Bivens listed. A spokesperson with the college did not respond to questions from PublicSource.
Penn State has been working to launch what will be the state’s second bachelor’s degree program for incarcerated students, in rehabilitation and human services. The program will ideally serve students who have already earned an associate’s degree, meaning they’re halfway to completing a bachelor’s degree.
The university initially expected to enroll about 12 students this summer, but the program is “held up” and lacking a start date, according to program manager Liana Cole.
Interested universities have to receive approval from state correctional agencies, a sheriff or the federal Bureau of Prisons, the federal Department of Education, and an accreditor. Cole said the university is partly waiting for the education department to sort out logistics but noted that the state corrections department has been collaborative and helpful.
“We recognize that [the delay] produces a lot of anxiety in students who have heard about the program, and in us, because we really want to get this started,” Cole said. “We are working really, really hard to get a start date so that we can offer stability to students.”
These programs are important, Mitchell said, because they help incarcerated people confront the belief that they have “limited options to navigate life.” They also set a precedent for families to earn an education, he said. Mitchell and his young daughter have bonded over learning, sending each other their report cards and striving for perfect grades.
“I hope, one day, that we can get to a place where we understand the benefits of programs like this, and then we pour more resources … as opposed to ‘Let’s just tie the person up and house them and then, one day, let the same individual waltz back into the community thinking that we’re going to get something different.’”
Emma Folts covers higher education at PublicSource, in partnership with Open Campus. She can be reached at emma@publicsource.org.
This story was fact-checked by Briana Bindus.