As Ithaka S+R continues its work on enhancing data infrastructure for higher education in prison, we are committed to leveraging insights from experts across the field and highlighting key initiatives shaping the landscape. The restoration of Pell Grants for incarcerated learners, enacted through the FAFSA Simplification Act, has created a pressing need to examine program accountability, approval processes, and the role of data in supporting high-quality education.

As we look forward to publishing findings from over 40 interviews with higher education in prison practitioners, policymakers, and researchers later this year, we are spotlighting related efforts that contribute to this evolving space. In this post, we interview Ruth Delaney, director of the Vera Institute of Justice’s Unlocking Potential initiative.

Image of Ruth Delaney

Ruth Delaney

Ruth and her colleagues at Vera recently published The Best Interest Determination (BID) Toolkit: Guidance for Oversight Entities, a resource designed to support the implementation and evaluation of Pell-eligible prison education programs. The Best Interest Determination, or BID, is a comprehensive program review, conducted by the oversight entity (e.g., state department of corrections, bureau of prisons, jail or other correctional facility partner), to assess whether a prison education program is operating in the best interest of students. This review must occur within two years of the date the program receives Pell-eligible approval from the Department of Education.

In the conversation below, Ruth shares insights into the development of the BID toolkit, its objectives, and the broader work Vera is doing to advance the reach and quality of higher education in prison programs.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your position and the work that you do.

I am the director for the Vera Institute of Justice’s Unlocking Potential initiative. We work with colleges and corrections agencies to advance access to high quality postsecondary education programs in prison. Our initiative has a special focus on the reinstatement of eligibility for Pell grants to incarcerated people. After a nearly 30-year ban, legislation was signed by the president to bring back Pell in 2020. Vera is now helping our partners to implement the law and regulations to make college programs accessible to more people in prison.

Looking at Vera’s recent memo, The Best Interest Determination (BID) Toolkit: Guidance for Oversight Entities, can you start by explaining what is a Best Interest Determination (BID), and what audiences you hope the memo reaches?

This Toolkit is primarily aimed at corrections agencies. In the regulations, departments of corrections are tasked with reviewing Pell eligible college programs—termed Prison Education Programs—to ensure that they are operating in the best interest of the students. The corrections agencies have to do this by gathering feedback from four stakeholder groups: incarcerated people, groups representing incarcerated people, state higher education executive offices, and accreditors. They also have to review the colleges on four criteria, which have to do with ensuring substantially similar faculty credentials, credit transferability, and how academic and career advising within the program compares to what is offered at other locations of the college, as well as the policies that ensure students who are unable to complete their credential in prison are able to continue at another location of the college. In addition, the corrections agencies can consider other criteria it deems relevant.

What are some of the major considerations and challenges for creating and implementing the BID process? How do you feel it differs from the evaluation/approval process for programs offered on main campuses on the outside? 

While the regulations are clear about who needs to do what, they don’t offer a process for stakeholders to follow. Our Toolkit is designed to offer some suggested approaches that corrections agencies could take to building out their best interest determination process at the local level. The baseline challenge here is to have a process that works and that meaningfully engages stakeholders in the process.

Students in prison are less visible and therefore more vulnerable to poor quality programs than students in [higher education on the outside]. This process doesn’t really mirror any existing review that happens on the main campus. At the same time, students in [higher education on the outside] have access to many more resources and opportunities for advocacy than incarcerated students. The best interest determination is a crucial quality control measure put in place by the regulations.

The term “substantially similar” comes up throughout the regulations and, we think, this memo begins to suggest how oversight entities might want to think about what constitutes substantially similar. Can you just tell us a bit about what you think stakeholders in the BID process should be looking for as they define and benchmark the substantial similarity of service offerings?

Programs offered in prison should deliver the same quality of education and services to students as those that are offered to students who aren’t incarcerated. Using language like “substantially similar” allows for some variation and innovation in how colleges accomplish this—a necessary recognition of the challenges of delivering programs in prison. A straight-forward way to examine this would be to request data from the colleges on the four required criteria that compare the program side by side to other locations. To add complexity and account for implementation differences, we believe this should always be done with accompanying narrative from the college to explain the data. Lots of things, both good and bad, can happen in the course of an academic year: a quality review will give colleges the opportunity to tell that story.

The creation of this toolkit and insights that inform it not only come from the expertise held by yourself and the Vera Institute, but also from BID Council and Corrections Education Leadership Academy. Can you tell us a bit about what those committees are and how you all worked together to develop this guidance?

Vera convened the BID Council over the summer to advise on the creation of the Toolkit. We gathered stakeholders that mirrored the four required stakeholder groups that must participate in the BID at the local level. Vera had great partners in this work. The Council shaped what we ultimately put into the Toolkit and provided many useful examples of materials and documents they had already produced for their own BIDs to share with the field. We are so grateful to this great group for their participation.

Vera convened the fourth cohort of the Corrections Education Leadership Academy this year. This is a learning and professional development opportunity. Participants include education leaders who work in corrections agencies, college leaders, and directly impacted people—the link between them is that they’re all working to offer high quality postsecondary education in prison in their own communities. Throughout the year, we bring in experts, review the state of the field on emerging topics, and share resources. This year we collaborated with Jobs for the Future, the Corrections Education Association, and the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison to deliver the community of practice. Having so much expertise in one place is truly remarkable.

While so much is being addressed by this toolkit, the prison education program process includes many other steps and stakeholders. What do you see as the most pressing areas of need beyond the BID? What work or answers still need to happen within the BID process?  

When it comes to the BID, the next steps are for corrections agencies to begin convening the stakeholders required by the regulations and any other entities they think will have important insights to the quality of the programs on offer. Next, each state will need to make decisions about what they will assess their prison education programs on, including what data they’ll request and in what format. Then they’ll need to develop a process that captures all of this detail to give it longevity and consistency across reviews. There’s a lot for corrections agencies and stakeholders to take on, but I see a lot of interest and readiness among our partners to take this on.

At a higher level, there are a few things I’d like to see happen in the next couple of years. First, I’d like to see college programs available at every prison in every state and jurisdiction. Next, I’d like to see collaboration among corrections and colleges at the state level to ensure their programs are best serving students in prison and through reentry. At the same time, I want to see these programs deliver on the college promise of good jobs and living wages. This will require greater collaboration with the business community in every state. We should be seeing people leaving prison with college credentials and embarking on successful careers in their communities.