Higher Education in Reentry Reimagined

Project Background

The State University of New York (SUNY) is committed to providing educational equity for incarcerated New Yorkers, currently serving over 1,000 students across 24 state prisons. When folks exit prison, they may want to continue their education journey.

In the upcoming academic year, SUNY will expand academic offerings inside prisons and re-entry supports for students in re-entry across the state. Creating stronger supports and more educational pathways for students who return back to New York City can serve as a model of what is scalable across the state. As SUNY expands programming, they want to ensure that participants’ voices are driving decision-making.

Public Policy Lab will collaborate with existing stakeholders to engage the voices of end-users in future plans for SUNY’s Office of Higher Education in Prison (SUNY OHEP). We willl work together to strengthen and streamline pathways for students transitioning out of prison. Over the next six months, we will collaborate directly with OHEP, CUNY’s Institute for State and Local Governance (ISLG), and other stakeholder groups. Through human-centered research and design, PPL will work with formerly incarcerated students to co-design resources and tools to ease the experience of reentering CUNY and other NYC-based colleges after prison.

Throughout the project, we employ human-centered research, design, and implementation methods and have been working side-by-side with two peer researchers. Our peer researchers, who have personal experience pursuing higher education during reentry, are assisting with research tasks, collaborating on design concepts, and providing invaluable context to the greater PPL team about the nuances of transitioning out of prison. During the peer researchers’ onboarding, we trained them in the foundations of PPL’s human-centered design research practice, and they helped craft our research approach.

Project Goals

Strengthen collaboration between SUNY, CUNY, CBOs, and other stakeholder groups to more seamlessly support formerly incarcerated students in NYC to pursue higher education programs.
Co-design and develop resources with formerly incarcerated students that will improve their experience continuing higher education after prison.

Participants

What We're Researching

Inquiry Areas

What drives people’s decisions to continue their education after their release from prison?
What enables people to pursue higher education after their release from prison?
What supports the ongoing success of formerly incarcerated students once enrolled in CUNY and other NYC-based higher education programs?

To explore our three inquiry areas, we conducted desk research, held semi-structured interviews with university staff, professors, reentry services providers, and held a group interview with formerly incarcerated people.

Desk Research
We revisited reports from reentry experts and research institutions. That research added detail to our understanding of the current state of higher education in prison and opportunities to strengthen support during reentry. Here are some highlights from that research:

▸ More than 750,000 people in prison are eligible to enroll in a post-secondary program, and surveys indicate that more than 70 percent of those individuals are interested in post-secondary education. (Taber et al., 2024)

▸ In a federal study of people released from state prisons, 94 percent of incarcerated adults identified education as a key reentry need. (Visher & Lattimore, 2007)

▸ 34 percent of incarcerated SUNY students in New York will return to New York City upon their release from prison. (Gais et al., 2023)

▸ Only 8 percent of students serving Aggregate Minimum Sentences of less than 4 years graduated, while nearly 29 percent of students serving sentences of at least 20 years completed their associate degree programs. (Gais et al., 2023)

Design Stimuli

During interviews, we asked participants open-ended questions to elicit stories about their lived experience, like “if your educational journey were a book, what’s the name of the chapter you’re on?”

Semi-Structured Interviews
We had conversations with thirteen frontline staff and subject matter experts from different universities and reentry services throughout New York. Some were justice-impacted people themselves. They gave us a sense of the challenges people face when trying to advance their education after prison and suggested strategies to support people in their pursuit of higher education.

We facilitated a group interview with twelve formerly incarcerated people–seven of whom were current college students and five of whom were former students. The group setting allowed us to weave together shared experiences amongst participants to form meaningful insights in the moment.

What We Heard

Here are a few highlights from the stories we heard:

"I couldn't wait for my son to see me walk. For my kids to see me come to the commencement, see me with the cap and gown and see his old man, even though he was incarcerated, doing something with his time. And I told my son, if I can do it in there then you shouldn't have any excuses out there, son."

“It was an interesting time learning how to juggle becoming educated in prison because prison has a stigma that you don't really go to prison to get educated. You're in prison because you did, I guess for lack of better terms, uneducated things or uneducated decisions, but in prison it's like a stigma, you know?”

“I think that that's another big learning curve that I see with students is (...) How do I begin to keep track of all this? This is my [university] email. How do I even access it? It's overwhelming. And if you couple that with, you know, not having access to technology for a period of time, it can also be a challenge. ”

“You're not being taught technology while you're inside. So even though you are attending school or whatever, they are managing to finagle and wangle it where you don't have access to technology. Then you come home, and you want to go right into a college after the prison program, but you don't have the technological chops, and this is not your fault, you know.”

“After I was released, I contacted my counselor and asked her, did I have my vital documents? My birth certificate, my social security? She said yes, everything was in my folder. The day that I was released, I did get the folder and there wasn't a damn thing in there. Nothing. So for all intended purposes, I didn't exist. Couldn't get a job, I couldn't get housing. It was pretty scary. And that lasts for years.”

Findings
After hearing from people at all levels of the reentry system, we identified four pivotal stages in one’s journey from prison to college and highlighted emerging themes for each moment.

Considering Higher Education In this phase, formerly incarcerated students are forming ideas about what higher education is and what it could do for them. That can occur before, during, or after incarceration. While considering these opportunities, they may also be evaluating themselves – judging whether or not they’ll be able to successfully complete the program. Emerging themes:

Justice-impacted people often learn about higher education from their peers who have enrolled in programs.
Stigma around pursuing higher education is persistent and has a large impact on justice-impacted people’s choice to pursue higher education.
For justice-impacted people, choosing to pursue higher education can feel like a choice to change their identity. That’s a motivating factor for some, but a deterrent for others.
Whether inside or outside of prison, there are many reasons why someone would join a higher education program. Inside, it’s often about improving daily life. Outside, there’s a wider variety of reasons, which are often more personal.

Listen to participants discuss considering higher education in their own words.

Preparing for Release Preparing for release involves transitioning between support networks and communities – between those who exist inside prison and those who exist outside. It’s both an end and a beginning. To thrive in reentry, people need their basic needs met, like food, shelter, and financial security. Reentry preparation should make it clear where people can go for support with their physical and emotional needs. Emerging themes:

Preparing for release is also about preparing to leave behind a familiar and accessible support system, which isn’t guaranteed after leaving prison.
There is a lack of digital literacy programs teaching skills necessary to confidently use technology at work and school. The tech literacy programs that do exist need to be more widely advertised.
Preparing for release requires gathering lots of personal documents, like medical records, identification documents, and potentially academic transcripts. Those documents allow people to access the support they may need during reentry.
To feel supported during reentry, people need direct connections to and strong relationships with support organizations prior to their release from prison.

Listen to participants discuss preparing for release in their own words.

Finding Support during Reentry Formerly incarcerated people have to juggle a lot during reentry. Finding stable living conditions and employment are usually the first priorities after release. Before those are sorted out, expecting someone to think hard about higher education is unrealistic. Support during reentry comes in a variety of forms, but strong, sometimes personal relationships are what most people recount as the vital foundation to their success in reentry. Emerging themes:

Among formerly incarcerated people, education and employment are often framed as competing priorities. Reentry providers aim to reframe these aspects of one’s life as complementary.
Pre-college classes aimed at improving both hard and soft skills required for college are beneficial. Building time management skills is especially important because formerly incarcerated people need to reorient themselves to time outside of prison.
Formerly incarcerated people are often guided towards careers in human services, like social work. Less career guidance and fewer opportunities are available for other career fields.
People feel the most supported by reentry providers with whom they develop a personal relationship.

Listen to participants discuss finding support during reentry in their own words.

Continuing Higher Education Once they are enrolled, formerly incarcerated students have unique needs that require specialized support. Individuals who understand those unique needs firsthand are best suited to provide that support. Peer support is a catalyst to success in higher education programs. Emerging themes:

Peer mentorship is vital for formerly incarcerated students. The expertise and level of understanding offered by their shared lived experience allows peer mentors to provide better, more personalized support to formerly incarcerated students during college.
Professional development for formerly incarcerated people needs further specialization. It should teach how experiences or skills developed in prison can be leveraged in school or work. It should also teach formerly incarcerated people the basics of employment law, to allow for stronger self-advocacy in professional settings.
Higher education teachers and administrators see a need for improved understanding amongst colleagues of the formerly incarcerated student’s experience. They see value in creating communities of support for these students.
During college, financial aid application requirements and procedures to prove satisfactory academic progress are especially confusing. They require additional hands on support.

Listen to participants discuss continuing higher education in their own words.

Research Shareout

We invited our research participants and project partners to the PPL office to immerse themselves in the research stories. During the share-out, attendees moved between stations that reflected the four journey stages. The exhibit-style setup transported attendees into the field through videos and audio clips. To conclude the session, the group recapped which bits of information were most surprising, and which seemed to suggest promising opportunity areas for the rest of our work.

Design Concepts

To address the needs expressed during research, the HERR team developed a series of design concepts, ultimately settling on two concept areas to take forward into co-design. Next, we’ll work with formerly incarcerated people and staff to refine the concepts and develop launch-ready prototypes.

Coalition Building

Higher education programs that support formerly incarcerated people and reentry providers could strengthen their partnerships to guarantee more holistic and coordinated support to ensure their students’ success inside and outside of the classroom. Formal agreements between institutions and reentry providers could ensure clear pathways to support for students juggling additional life priorities while pursuing higher education.

Community and Capacity Building

Community building strategies grounded in restorative practices could help foster empathy, deepen understanding of the reentry experience, and spark meaningful change in the reentry support network. This concept aims to create an environment of institutional accountability committed to long-term success for formerly incarcerated individuals once they are in college. This concept also appeals to promote training for staff as part of their professional development serving students from diverse backgrounds in their institutions.

Project Implementation

This project is slated to share the newly designed tools and materials in early 2025.

Projects

Higher Education in Reentry Reimagined

Partners & Funders

The Project

The Outcome

Higher Education in Reentry Reimagined

Partners & Funders

The Project

The Outcome

Project Background

What We're Researching

What We Heard

Design Concepts

Coalition Building

Community and Capacity Building

Project Implementation

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Projects

Higher Education in Reentry Reimagined

Partners & Funders

The Project

The Outcome

Higher Education in Reentry Reimagined

Partners & Funders

The Project

The Outcome

Project Background

What We're Researching

What We Heard

Design Concepts

Coalition Building

Community and Capacity Building

Project Implementation

Menu

Get in Touch

Interested in partnering with us?

Join Us

We’re always open to talking to folks with the skills, experience, and passion to join our team. Share your interest with us through our general application. To hear about future job announcements, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn or subscribe to our newsletter.

Follow Along

Social Media

Donate

We’re always open to talking to folks with the skills, experience, and passion to join our team. Share your interest with us through our general application.

To hear about future job announcements, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn or subscribe to our newsletter.