Education has been Sheron Edwards’ escape during his more than 20 years in state and federal prison. He’s earned certifications from three college programs, taught GED and English as a second language classes, written an autobiography, and become a personal trainer.

“It made me feel amazing … to start learning and become a scholar because I think it's a lifelong journey,” Edwards told me by phone from Chickasaw County Regional Correctional Facility in Mississippi, where he’s incarcerated for armed robbery.

For all of the accomplishments Edwards has racked up, one has eluded him so far: A college degree. He could be on his way soon, however, thanks to a recent change in federal law. As of July 1, most people in prisons — though not in jails or detention centers — are now eligible to receive Pell Grant student aid, for the first time in nearly 30 years. The Associated Press reports that the change will give an additional 30,000 students behind bars access to some $130 million in financial aid per year. In all, 760,000 incarcerated people could be newly eligible for aid according to the Department of Education, though many prisons don’t yet have capacity or higher education partners.

These need-based federal grants have long been an important tool for low-income people seeking higher education, and people behind bars are disproportionately from poor socioeconomic backgrounds. According to the non-profit Higher Education in Prison Research, college education had been common in prisons until the 1994 Crime Bill excluded incarcerated people from Pell Grant eligibility. Without those funds to prop up college courses, nearly all the programs closed.

In 2015, the Obama Administration launched a pilot program to restart Pell eligibility in 141 correctional facilities across the nation, a number that’s since grown to over 200. Congress quietly ditched the ban in 2020, and federal officials began preparing for the floodgates to re-open.

Read the full article about higher education for incarcerated people by Jamiles Lartey at The Marshall Project.