A biweekly newsletter about the intersection of higher education and criminal justice. Written by Open Campus national reporter Charlotte West.

Federal funding cuts have outsized consequences for formerly incarcerated people

Today we're featuring a first-person essay by Kun Lyna "K" Tauch, who wrote his first story for College Inside while he was still locked up. Since then, he's gotten out, gone back into prison to graduate with his California State University Los Angeles cohort, and started building a new life as a volunteer through California Justice Leaders, a partnership between AmeriCorps and the nonprofit Impact Justice aimed at supporting formerly incarcerated adults. Now he reflects on the federal program that he says gave him a pathway to a career—and the uncertainty of its future.

As he puts it: "When you've spent 18 years learning to be an adult in prison, programs like California Justice Leaders aren't just jobs — they're bridges back to society." 

K's experience is part of a broader theme we've been tracking: how federal funding cuts have outsized consequences for formerly incarcerated people. Many of the programs President Donald Trump’s administration has eliminated or is considering cutting serve that exact demographics that formerly incarcerated people often fall into: low-income students, first-generation students, older adults entering the workforce, and people who need basic literacy and job training. 

K described how many of his formerly incarcerated peers had to immediately start looking for other positions when Americorps funding was abruptly cut off in April. As one person we talked to said, they don’t have the luxury of waiting around. Many formerly incarcerated people have families to take care of, or have to keep a job as a condition of their probation or parole. 

“I believed that federal funding was stable, and based on that assumption, I made some big decisions for myself,” K wrote. “I rented an apartment and bought a new car.”

The cuts also create trickle-down effects. AmeriCorps slashed $400 million in grant funding this past spring as part of the Trump administration’s cuts. That means there are fewer resources—and people—to serve justice-impacted communities. 

As Open Campus local reporter Adam Echelman wrote for our partner CalMatters, the future of the 32-year-old volunteerism agency is unclear. While Congress approved money for the program's next fiscal year starting Aug. 1, the administration hasn't released those funds yet—and Trump's budget proposal eliminates AmeriCorps entirely after 2026.

Other federal programs that benefit incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people are also under threat. Natalie Yahr, one of our pathways reporters at Wisconsin Watch, found that workforce and adult education programs that provide job training and literacy instruction—including programs that educate people incarcerated in prisons and jails—are losing funding. The Trump administration froze $715 million in adult education funds nationwide, threatening programs that help adults complete high school, learn English, and improve their literacy skills.

Similarly, Claire Rafford, our reporter at Mirror Indy, explored the impact of eliminating the federal Senior Community Service Employment Program, which helps low-income adults over 55 learn job skills through digital literacy training and career coaching. In Indiana alone, the program serves 31 counties, and uncertainty over funding has already forced the state workforce development department to tell some workers not to report to their job sites while waiting for already-approved federal money.

Program participants include Christi Tilson, who was 60 when she got out of prison after serving four years. The program helped her gain digital literacy skills and find employment. "I was 60, coming out into the world with nothing," she told Claire. "I had to figure out how to live in recovery."

The senior employment initiative and other adult education programs are among dozens of federally funded programs the Trump administration wants to get rid of in an effort to curb what it sees as wasteful government spending. 

At the end of June, Jason Gonzales, our reporter at Chalkbeat Colorado, also reported that Trump's budget proposal would also eliminate all funding for TRIO programs, which serve 870,000 high school and college students nationwide from low-income backgrounds, students with disabilities, and first-generation students. TRIO is a resource that many formerly incarcerated students benefit from, as they often fall into one or more of these groups.

But there's one bright spot. Buried in the mammoth legislation that Congress passed in early July is something that might benefit formerly incarcerated people in the future: Workforce Pell grants. These new grants let people use federal aid for short-term job training programs—8 to 14 weeks instead of traditional two-year degrees. People who have already earned a bachelor’s degree are also eligible.

"When you're coming out of jail, you don't have two years," Roger Stanford, president of Western Technical College in Wisconsin, told Natalie for Wisconsin Watch. "If we could turn around and say, 'We can take you right from the jail and give you 10 weeks and put you into a job that has life-sustaining wages,’ that helps (lower) recidivism.”

Read K’s full essay here.

Let’s connect

Please connect if you have story ideas or just want to share your experience with prison education programs as a student or educator. You can always reach me at [email protected] or on Bluesky, LinkedIn, or Instagram. To reach me via snail mail, you can write to: Open Campus, 2460 17th Avenue #1015, Santa Cruz, CA 95062.

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