Initiatives like Ascendium Education Group’s Ready for Pell initiative, which JFF manages, are engaging correctional and postsecondary education systems in learning about best practices to enroll and support incarcerated learners. Ready for Pell’s focus will be on aligning partners to provide services that place learners on a pathway from incarceration to education, careers, and equitable economic advancement.
Community colleges are well-positioned to help people with records advance economically for a number of reasons:
● They offer an array of programs aligned with the local labor market for those seeking employment, as well as transfer pathways for those seeking to earn a bachelor’s degree and beyond. Many also offer high school equivalency options.
● They have the geographical reach to physically meet learners where they are, whether they are still incarcerated or have recently returned to their communities, and increasingly offer online and hybrid options.
● They offer a wide array of supports, such as food pantries, mental health services, and connections to other community partners.
● They are affordable—and will be even more affordable once Pell Grant funding for people in prison has been fully restored.
The MCC 180 RAP program demonstrates what it looks like when colleges embrace serving learners with records as a core part of their student success agenda. At Good-Collins’s urging, her department began the work informally for several years before she approached the warden and the college president to have the program officially approved.
Today, with the supervision and support of MCC’s board of governors, 180 RAP provides students with course registration assistance, as well as financial aid and scholarship application support. Continuous coaching, tutoring, and mentoring are the anchors of the program, offering individualized and group support. Students in prison have case managers who help them continue their coursework if they move to a new facility; formerly incarcerated students have weekly peer support group meetings with 25 to 30 other students. Some members of the group were recently released, while others have been home for over a decade.
MCC also helps students with access to basic needs (such as the food pantry) and academic support. The college has eight campuses in total, but 180 RAP is headquartered at the main campus in Fort Omaha, so staff travel to meet any of their students who need their help and services.
“We go where they need us to be,” says Good-Collins.
The 180 RAP program provides instruction in pathways such as information technology, manufacturing trades, and college and career general education. The most popular certificate is the Diversified Manufacturing Career Certificate, accredited by the Manufacturing Skills Standard Council and converted from an online assessment to paper format to work in a correctional setting. With this accommodation, MCC’s incarcerated students are testing in the top 4th percentile in the nation.
Another popular pathway is the Google IT Tech Academy. The college received a Google Impact Challenge Grant to purchase ten laptops and develop a closed network system teaching incarcerated students IT certification classes in the Omaha Correctional Center. Other noncredit courses include certifications, such as forklift operation or Occupational Safety and Health Administration guidelines, that can help secure employment.