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

Short on time? Here’s what you need to know:

• Join me, Charlotte West, along with Lawrence Bartley and Martin Garcia of The Marshall Project, next week for an Alliance for Higher Education in Prison Community Conversation about navigating the media and how journalists go about their jobs. Come and ask all the questions you have about how we cover the higher ed and criminal justice systems during this webinar on Monday, Aug. 18 at 3pm eastern. 

• This newsletter was nominated for the Breaking Barriers Award from the Institute for Nonprofit News. 

• Today we're sharing a few takeaways from our survey on college and career after incarceration. We partnered with Jobs for the Future's Center for Justice & Economic Advancement to gather insights from nearly 100 formerly incarcerated people about their experiences with higher education and the job market. There’s more to come, but we wanted to share some of the common themes people shared. 

• ICYMI: This story we published last month details how federal funding cuts have outsized consequences for formerly incarcerated people. And don’t forget to check out Kun Lyna Tauch's essay about how AmeriCorps funding cuts affected him.

‘Don't assume you're limited to trades or manual labor’

This spring, in collaboration with Jobs for the Future's Center for Justice & Economic Advancement, College Inside launched a survey on college and career after incarceration. Nearly 100 formerly incarcerated people filled it out, sharing insights from their experiences with navigating higher education and the job market. (The survey remains open for anyone who wants to contribute their experiences.) Some of the most striking responses were about what people wish they had known before they came home. Here are a four takeaways:

People assume degrees will open all doors while not always understanding what career paths their degrees actually enable.

Many respondents assumed that having a bachelor’s degree would immediately translate into a career, while others weren’t aware of the possible career paths they could take. 

Maria Garza, who continued her bachelor's degree at Northwestern University after being released from the Illinois Department of Corrections, said she thought that just having a degree from a top ranked university would secure her a great job. "That would be true only if we knew what type of jobs the degree supports," she said, noting the disconnect that sometimes occurs between academia and employers. 

This echoes what we heard during a listening session earlier this year with our partner WBEZ Chicago at Sheridan Correctional Center, where students pointed to the lack of basic information about professional paths. People often have limited aspirations because they don't know what's possible. 

"Don't assume you're limited to trades or manual labor," wrote Jarret Orcutt, who now works in higher education in Nevada, in his survey response. "If you want to be a professor, a coder, or run your own nonprofit—you can."

Tech is a barrier in job searches. Learning digital skills can also help build social capital.

After years or decades without technology access, people are expected to navigate a digital job market. Basic skills like filling out online applications or using LinkedIn become major barriers. L.Elizabeth Shatswell was able to secure her current position because she debated with her now-boss on a LinkedIn post — but as she noted, you need digital literacy from the very beginning just to complete job applications. 

This aligns with what we found in our previous survey about technology use in prison, where respondents consistently highlighted the gap between the digital skills needed for reentry and what's available inside.

Learning digital skills can also help build social capital. As Shatswell's experience shows, being able to engage professionally online — whether through LinkedIn comments, joining industry groups, or maintaining a professional network — can open doors

Higher education in prison can be transformative, but lack of experience remains a hurdle when job searching.

Education provides crucial personal development and opens minds to new possibilities, but employers still prioritize practical work experience that's difficult to gain while incarcerated. 

"Employers did not care about my education when I was released. They wanted experience," said Tommy DeLuna, who recently graduated from Sacramento State University in California. 

In response to this gap, organizations like the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison and JFF are developing work-based learning initiatives to help bridge this experience gap, as we've previously reported.

The most valuable reentry information came from other formerly incarcerated people, not formal programs.

As we've heard before during our listening session in Chicago, peer support can be one of the most valuable resources for reentry.

"The most important source of information wasn't a website, a book, or a flyer — it was people," said Elon Molina, an alum of the Bard Prison Initiative in New York state who now works as a learning and development specialist for a roofing company. "Conversations with others who had already walked the path after release were my greatest resource."

But the networking challenge goes deeper than just information sharing. Professional success often depends on personal connections — something that can be particularly difficult for formerly incarcerated people who may have limited professional networks or whose previous connections may no longer be relevant to their post-release goals. 

College Inside nominated for INN's Breaking Barriers Award

We're excited to share that the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) has nominated this newsletter for its Breaking Barriers Award, which recognizes reporting that brings new understanding to an issue or topic affecting people or communities that are historically underrepresented, disadvantaged or marginalized, and results in impactful change. 

It is the first INN Nonprofit News Awards nomination for Open Campus. INN — which is a membership organization of hundreds of nonprofit newsrooms — received more than 600 entries in total for its awards this year. We’ll find out if we won on Sept. 10. 

New and views

JFF, with support from Ascendium, has launched an RFP for Fair Chance to Advance State Action Networks, selecting four states to receive up to $2.1 million in funding each to expand high-quality education and training programs in correctional facilities. States interested in applying must submit a nonbinding letter of intent by August 26, 2025, with full proposals due October 14, 2025. Learn more 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.

We know that not everyone has access to email, so if you’d like to have a print copy College Inside sent to an incarcerated friend or family member, you can sign them up here. We also publish the PDFs of our print newsletter on the Open Campus website.

There is no cost to subscribe to the print edition of College Inside. But as a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on grants and donations to keep bringing you the news about prison education. You can also donate here.

Interested in reaching people who care about higher education in prisons? Get in touch at [email protected] or request our media kit.

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