Publications and Resources

This practice brief provides six recommendations for college and university staff to create or update data collection and reporting capacities for students with incarceration histories. These recommendations were derived from a national study that examined if and how colleges and universities collect and report information on students with incarceration histories. At present, the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) does not require institutions to report student data with an incarceration indicator. This means that national enrollment, completion, time-to-credential, and related success metrics for incarcerated students are unknown in the aggregate. Consequently, the rapid growth of enrollment among students with incarceration histories is happening without a baseline understanding of who students are, where they are located, what programs of study they are pursuing, and how they are faring in those pathways. The practice brief aims to assist college and university staff in taking stock of current data collection and reporting practices and initiating intentional processes of incorporating this population of students into critical data infrastructure.

This research brief offers insight into how college and university presidents of institutions with prison higher education programs talk about and explain providing postsecondary education to incarcerated learners. Against the backdrop of recent federal policy changes alongside the magnitude in program growth, we seek to document and understand how college and university presidents talk about prison higher education. Additionally, the recent expansion of Pell Grant eligibility for incarcerated students (see: FAFSA Simplification Act, 2019) alongside unprecedented speed in program growth, draws further importance to understanding how campus presidents articulate the reasons for prison higher education, as a way to inform future access to postsecondary education for incarcerated people as well as provide insight into the perceived relationship between the goals of higher education and prison higher education.

The Landscape of Higher Education in Prison reports provide a descriptive overview of the field of higher education in prison during the 2018-2019, 2019-2020, and 2020-2021 academic years. The data reported here is collected from the Annual Survey of Higher Education in Prison Programs and is made public through the National Directory of Higher Education in Prison Programs.

Established in 2019, the Journal of Higher Education in Prison is the only open-access, peer-reviewed journal that publishes exclusively on topics and issues affecting the field of higher education in prison.

The Resource Community for Higher Education in Prison (RCHEP) is an interactive platform where practitioners, students, graduates, advocates, administrators, and anyone invested in HEP can gather to share program updates, news, and resources, while also initiating and engaging in community building group discussions and blogs.

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This brief report from the Higher Education in Prison Landscape Project outlines the potential impacts of Pell restoration on the field of higher education in prison. Using original qualitative data from interviews with 12 higher education in prison programs and quantitative data from the 2020 Understanding the Landscape of Higher Education in Prison national survey, the analysis focuses on persistent funding challenges that the Pell grant alone cannot address.

This report offers information about the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on higher education in prison programs. The data used for this report come from two sources: 1) the 2020 Annual Survey of Higher Education in Prison Programs, and 2) the Understanding the Landscape of Higher Education in Prison Programs Survey.

The Understanding the Landscape of Higher Education Prison Survey (Landscape Survey) was designed as a confidential follow-up to the 2020 Annual Survey of Higher Education in Prison Programs, distributed by the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison. The Landscape Survey contained 93 questions designed to collect both descriptive and open-ended responses from participants about their college-in-prison programs during the 2018/2019 academic year. Included within this survey were specific questions about student, staff and volunteer demographics, program funding, student enrollment and admissions, program goals, and program evaluation.

Equity and Excellence in Practice: A Guide for Higher Education in Prison provides a clear and specific summary of some of the most essential components of high-quality in-prison higher education programs. The report outlines the attributes of programs that uphold a commitment to equity, excellence and access. While each prison setting is unique, the recommendations in the report are intended to be applied to the field of higher education generally.

In 2016, Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison and the Saint Louis University Prison Program spearheaded a yearlong planning process to investigate the need for and purpose of a national organization for higher education in prison. Throughout the process, a steering committee gathered input from a broad range of stakeholders and key partners. The focus groups, planning sessions and community surveys helped form the foundation of the network, including the mission, vision, values and purpose.