The Higher Education in Prison Research project, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, was designed to help the field accelerate the collection, dissemination, and utilization of research about postsecondary prison programs and their students. The project’s aim was to build consensus among a diverse array of stakeholders involved in postsecondary education in prisons—including program practitioners, government policymakers, college administrators, corrections professionals, academic researchers, scholarly publications, private philanthropy, and, most importantly, students themselves—around building on extant developments in the field to establish shared rigorous research processes and practice standards. In other words, this project was designed to facilitate the development of a higher education in prison research infrastructure in the US. The ultimate goal of the initiative was to support programs, practices, and policies that provide high-quality and equitable postsecondary education to a greater number of incarcerated people—and to improve their outcomes while incarcerated and, when applicable, following release.
The initiative ran from 2020 – 2023. The resources developed for the project, originally hosted on a standalone website, are now included below. For questions about the project or more information about Ithaka S+R’s current work in this area, please contact us at ithakasr@ithaka.org.
Project goals
The Higher Education in Prison Research project was led by a team of researchers from diverse educational and professional backgrounds who believe in facilitating the development of resources and connections among stakeholders—from educators and students to researchers and policymakers—to improve how we study higher education in prison. The project was designed to build a dynamic community of practice centered around the creation of a robust, ethical, and sustainable higher education in prison research infrastructure. Our goal was to see higher education in prison expand and grow as a field in its own right. That requires collaboration, and our work around this project aimed to facilitate resource sharing and conversation.
Working paper
Designed to function as a dynamic working document and starting point for communal discussion, when initially published the working paper sought to engage the higher education in prison community at large with the information, ideas, and suggestions we proposed as facilitators in this space. This included our framing of the issue at hand, our description of the state of higher education in prison research, and our suggested strategies for collaborating around advancing a higher education in prison research infrastructure to promote equitable access to quality programming and subsequent student success.