Mellon Foundation Awards New Grants To Expand Prison Higher Education

The Mellon Foundation has announced that it’s awarding more than $5 million in new grants as part of its Higher Education in Prisons (HEP) funding, a program designed to expand opportunities and increase resources for higher education with incarcerated individuals.

The new grants bring Mellon’s total HEP funding to over $60 million since 2015 and they come as eligibility for federal Pell Grants will be reinstated this summer for incarcerated learners, thanks to Congress recently lifting the decades-long ban on people in prison being eligible for the federal need-based grants.

Mellon’s support focuses on programs that deliver education and resources to prison populations and formerly incarcerated individuals, emphasizing curricula in liberal arts and humanities that “offer a deep understanding of what makes us human–an understanding that is especially needed in the often dehumanizing constraints of carceral settings.” It also supports system-level changes and leadership development, particularly for those directly impacted by the criminal legal system.

“Promoting liberal arts higher education in carceral settings is a crucial element of the Higher Learning program’s strategy for enhancing equitable access to advanced humanities thought and knowledge,” said Phillip Brian Harper, Mellon’s Program Director for Higher Learning in the Foundation’s news release. “Mellon is firmly committed to the idea that everyone must benefit from the liberatory power of the humanities, and our evolving portfolio of support for the education of incarcerated individuals epitomizes that commitment.”

According to a 2022 survey by the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, only about 600 of nearly 5,000 state and federal prisons and local jails provided higher education programs. But with an estimated 700,000 incarcerated adults soon becoming Pell-eligible due to the 2020 FAFSA Simplification Act, it’s expected that many colleges and universities will be introducing new opportunities for this population of learners.

“Access to higher education in prison illuminates some of the darkest corners of our society, revealing an untapped reservoir of intellectual potential. It transcends the steel bars and concrete walls, proving that the pursuit of knowledge is an invincible spirit representing freedom that no physical confinement can curtail,” added Ved Price, Executive Director of the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison.

The seven new Mellon Higher Education in Prisons grants have been awarded to:

• Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, which will assist the Alliance’s efforts to increase interest among incarcerated people in HEP programs. Funds will support paid humanities internships for currently incarcerated students, an annual academic conference from prison, and collaborative efforts to support HEP.
• Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison, Inc. to support the third Annual Rise Up Conference for Higher Education in Prison, which is conceived for and led by those with experience in the carceral system and fosters fresh leadership for the field.
• Loyola University New Orleans for support of a research base for emerging statewide efforts to expand and improve access to higher education among incarcerated people in Louisiana.
• Operation Restoration, which will fund the Tulane College of Professional Advancement College in Prison Program, expand the Louisiana-based College in Prison Program for incarcerated women, and establish post-release leadership development opportunities.
• Pitzer College for support of a Critical Justice Education program that will include the five undergraduate Claremont Colleges, the Claremont Graduate College, Norco Community College, and nearby carceral facilities.
• Unlocked Labs to support the expansion, scaling, and widespread adoption of an open-source learning management system for prison education programs in the United States.
• Villanova University, supporting the creation of a Pennsylvania consortium of higher education prison programs, in addition to college preparatory education courses and expansion of the Bachelor of Arts program in a Philadelphia prison facility.

Mellon has a long history of funding projects that bring greater access to higher education in carceral settings. The current grants are part of a larger Mellon idea – Imagining Freedom, a $125 million initiative that addresses problems of mass incarceration and the criminal legal system. They add to the Foundation’s tradition of supporting humanities-based courses and degrees for incarcerated learners, as well as making internships, research opportunities, and other forms of intellectual and personal support available to these students.

“Without educational opportunities, justice-involved individuals like me fail in overwhelming numbers to reintegrate into society,” said Jessica Hicklin, Chief Technology Officer of Unlocked Labs. “The Mellon Foundation, with its holistic approach to arts and humanities, is answering the call, providing us the essential opportunities not only to return to but thrive in society.”