Many progressive groups assume that we must prioritize making college education accessible to prisoners if we are to reduce recidivism. That is why Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced Friday that President Obama will temporarily lift the ban on Pell Grants – money from the federal government for who couldn’t afford college otherwise – to see if there is a connection between education and re-offending. But this plan misses one important fact: you can’t get a college degree if you are illiterate.

Pell grants to bring college back to prison: US is 'a nation of second chances' Read more

Inmates barely receive proper and effective high school education. As of October 2010, the last date for which data is available, 17,609 inmates were on waiting lists for GED classes in federal prisons alone. It seems unlikely that the backlog would have cleared as federal prison populations grew between 2010 and 2014. We don’t know how many inmates in state facilities are waiting to access high school classes.

The numbers of inmates who have a high school diploma or equivalent bounce all over the place. Some – like the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency prevention – say it’s as high as 80%. Other sources say it’s about 40%, so we don’t really know how many people have high school education when they land behind bars.



A study conducted by the Educational Testing Service in 1996, shortly after prisoner Pell grants had evaporated, found that about 67% of inmates couldn’t write a brief letter explaining a billing error, read a map or understand a bus schedule. Using 12th grade literacy as the standard, 75% of inmates are illiterate. The situation is worse for juveniles in

the justice system, 85% of whom are illiterate.

That’s what makes the debate about college funding so misplaced. While the infusion of grant money might resurrect some of college programs and provide a classroom experience for prisoners, what professors can accomplish in classes containing remedial readers?

Of course, there are literate inmates who can benefit from the funding for college programs. When my cellmate took a sociology course offered by Trinity College, I watched her throw off the shackles of emotional abuse – being called useless, stupid – as she convinced herself that she could be a successful college student. I watched her rehabilitate herself through that course.

But so many more inmates are not ready for college courses because they can barely read. We owe these inmates the high school education and literacy training that can prepare them to apply for those Pell grants. In not including increased funding for secondary education in prisons in his criminal justice reform agenda, President Obama is ignoring the most effective way to reduce recidivism.

Consider that the 2013 Rand study that correctional education advocates rely on as evidence of education’s power to reduce crime does not specifically tease out the effect of higher education on recidivism. The report states that high school education can have a great impact in reducing recidivism. This effect is most likely because these inmates are learning to read in the GED programs offered. Learning to read cuts a prisoner’s chances of re-offending from 70% to 14%.

And we are clearly not fixing the problem of prisoner under-education if the statistics on prisoner literacy – a rough proxy for high school education – are any indication. Despite the staggering problem of prison illiteracy, only 9% of all inmates with low literacy skills receive literacy training while they are incarcerated.



That’s why ending the ban on Pell grants isn’t the boon to criminal justice reform that everyone thinks it is. Other correctional educational needs must be addressed first if this country wants to prevent released prisoners from re-offending.