“That’s been the argument all the way along,” said Stephen Steuer, the executive director of the Correctional Education Association. Steuer and other supporters of prisoner education point to a 2013 Rand Corporation study finding that for every dollar spent on such programs, “you get $5 back in terms of reduced incarceration costs.” A Department of Education official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to preview Friday's announcement, cited the same Rand report, which found that prisoners who participated in correctional-education programs were 43 percent less likely to return to prison within three years.

To a large degree, the array of conservative groups that are supporting criminal-justice reform—including the Koch brothers, FreedomWorks, and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform—are united behind a pair of priorities: reducing the exorbitant government cost of incarcerating so many people, and reducing the sheer number of crimes for which people can be imprisoned. That’s not to say that many conservatives aren’t focused on the racial inequities in the system, or the moral failings of a society that tears so many families apart for minor crimes, but reducing the costs of the system remains a top concern.

“There’s so much to be done that people who are talking about spending more money really need to get to the end of the list,” Norquist told me. “Because if you’re talking about reducing mandatory minimums, that doesn’t cost money. That saves money. If you’re talking about reducing the 4,000 federal laws and the several hundred thousand regulations that can send you to prison if you fill out the paperwork wrong, that doesn’t cost a penny.”

“Asking for more money up front is a distraction from what can be accomplished,” Norquist said.

The Obama administration is characterizing the Pell grant initiative, which was first reported Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal, as a “limited pilot program” that it is permitted to launch under a provision of the Higher Education Act. The administration won’t say how much it will cost, or whether the funds will in any way limit the Pell grants available to low-income families outside the prison system. Other important details are also unknown, Steuer said, such as how many inmates would be eligible whether people convicted of certain crimes would be excluded.

Congress banned inmates from getting Pell grants in 1994, and there’s already concern among conservatives that the administration is acting unilaterally rather than waiting for approval from Capitol Hill. “President Obama, through administrative actions, is risking conservative support for justice reform,” said Jason Pye, the justice director for FreedomWorks, the D.C.-based conservative advocacy group. “To avoid any controversy, as well as undermine prospects for reform this year, the administration should go through Congress to lift the ban on Pell grants.” A group of Democrats in the House has already introduced a bill to restore Pell grants for prisoners permanently, and many liberal lawmakers want criminal-justice legislation to include an infusion of funds for urban programs aimed at keeping teenagers out of jail in the first place.