The 15th annual National Conference on Higher Education in Prison is bringing together advocates and educators this week in Downtown Cleveland.
The theme of this year's three-day event is "Beyond Access," with attendees exploring learning and sharing how to improve the depth of education people are accessing behind bars. It comes at a challenging time nationally for higher education due to declining enrollment and funding challenges, said Corinne Kannenberg, communications director for the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison. The alliance puts on the conference annually.
"As colleges and universities are facing their broader funding issues, sometimes that means that the first programs to be cut are the college campuses that are in prison," Kannenberg said.
Ohio legislators are also having a broader debate about safety and access inside high-security prisons, which some advocates say could end some prison education programs. The Ohio House passed House Bill 338 in November, known as "Andy's Law," to increases offenses for harming correctional facility employees and to try to prevent drug trafficking in facilities. It's named for Ohio correctional officer Andrew Lansing, who was allegedly killed by an incarcerated man in 2024.
Jonathan Morgan, a PhD student who studies criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati, is part of a working group of advocates that is suggesting changes to HB 338. In its current form, he said it gets rids of tablet access, in-person visitation and education programs in general for all people incarcerated at the state's highest-level security facilities, accounting for about 25% of the prison population.
"Not only does it reduce recidivism and make prison safer to have higher education and family visitation in prisons, when people get out, it gives them a better chance of success in finding jobs, having financial security, getting housing," Morgan said.
Advocates explain how programs benefit society, and limits
Several local programs are being highlighted this week at the conference, including a partnership between Grafton Correctional Institution and Oberlin College where incarcerated men at Grafton work with Oberlin students to stage plays.
Anjanette Hall, assistant professor of theatre at Oberlin College, presented on the Oberlin Grafton Theatre Collective with a handful of Oberlin students. Hall said the collective was formed through a close relationship with Grafton's facility activity therapy administrator, Eric Gardenhire. She said the men who are are incarcerated there write, act and design sets hand in hand with students.
"I think we've developed over the last three years into really good listeners and really good communicators, friends, colleagues, artists, a true ensemble," Hall said. "And we've found that it really is about creating art and theater that's not just about the men being incarcerated. So we grow as artists. We grow as people. We love to talk about and spark dialogue about social and political, politically relevant art making."
Hall and Gardenhire said the program has contributed to growth for both students, and the men and the environment inside Grafton.
The conference featured art and writing created by people who are incarcerated. Washington D.C. native Marcus Bullock started up several businesses, a journey he wouldn't have started on without first taking classes while serving eight years at a maximum security prison in Virginia for a carjacking.
Bullock said letters from his grandmother and mother he received while in prison inspired him to create a free cellphone application called Flikshop that allows people to send letters and pictures to incarcerated family members. He's also started a program to help formerly incarcerated people start their own businesses.
"There are 600,000 people that we know are coming home from state and federal prisons every year. And I'm asking myself, how do I want them to return?" Bullock said.
Advocate Shakur Collins agreed that greater attention is needed on integrating people recently released from prison back into society but also at colleges and universities. He works at Wesleyan University in Connecticut's Center for Prison Education, through which he got his own associate's degree while he was incarcerated for 22 years.
"When you come home, you have to worry about how do I feed myself, how do I clothe myself, and how do I get housing?" Collins said, noting finding a job and housing is more difficult when you have a criminal record.
Prison education programs have spent decades rebuilding after the federal 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act banned incarcerated people from receiving federal Pell Grants, said Corinne Kannenberg with the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison. Access to Pell Grants was restored under the Biden administration in 2023.
But new challenges have arisen recently as the federal government has cut funding for a litany of social service programs.
"We have found that, in general, higher education in prison often has bipartisan support," the Alliance said in a follow-up statement Wednesday. "That being said, while we don't have precise numbers about the impact of federal funding cuts, we do know that any funding instability creates ripple effects in the field since the work relies on a patchwork of state, federal, philanthropic, and other funding. Workforce reductions and budget constraints have affected both the organizations in the field and our partners."
The conference concludes Friday.
