California has more incarcerated college students than any other state in the country, but a new report raises questions about the quality of the education they’re getting.
The majority of California’s 10,000 incarcerated community college students are enrolled in correspondence courses, which students were less likely to complete than face-to-face classes. And that fact is despite a 2021 law that requires the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to prioritize face-to-face instruction.
California’s 116 community colleges make up the largest higher education system in the country and it’s one of the few states to allow incarcerated students to use state funding to take college classes. But the prevalence of correspondence courses with low completion rates is a problem because getting a degree while inside is shown to reduce the likelihood of going back to prison. It also affects students might face challenges getting all the classes they need to transfer into bachelor’s programs.
California community colleges receive $37 million per year in state funding to educate incarcerated students. Sixty percent of the classes they offer in California state prisons are via correspondence, according to a report published by the state Legislative Analyst’s Office last week.
Prison education has also become an enrollment boon. Incarcerated students studying via correspondence make up a significant portion of overall enrollment for some California colleges. But there is little oversight, and linking state funding to student performance could give colleges more incentive to improve student support services, according to the study.
In correspondence classes, students receive printed course packets that they work through on their own. They submit assignments and receive instructor feedback via mail or through the prison’s education department. Correspondence courses are easier to offer for a few reasons: in-person classes are hindered by a lack of classroom space, and some programs have difficulty recruiting faculty, particularly at prisons in rural communities.
Overall, the analysis found mixed outcomes for incarcerated community college students. Incarcerated students finished classes at similar rates to the overall community college population, but completion rates for correspondence courses were lower than in-person courses offered inside. Incarcerated students were also less likely to continue their education or and graduate compared to the overall community college population (less than 5% vs. 20% within three years). Factors that impact these metrics also include lack of access to technology, frequent lockdowns that restrict students’ access to educational materials, and prison transfers.
The average time it takes for an incarcerated student to graduate is 9 years, the analysis found based on data provided by the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.
Romarilyn Ralston took both in-person and correspondence courses during the two decades she spent in California prisons. She was released in 2011 and is now the senior director of the Justice Education Center for the Claremont Colleges, which offers an accelerated bachelor’s degree at the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco through Pitzer College.
Students will often transfer into the program with very strong transcripts and might have multiple associate’s degrees earned via correspondence. “It looks great on paper, but when they transfer in they don’t have the right foundation,” she said.
Ralston said that students who have had face-to-face instruction have less performance anxiety and understand classroom dynamics better than students who have primarily studied via correspondence. Students in correspondence programs have to study by themselves and are often only assessed via multiple choice tests that don’t help them master the knowledge they need for upper division classes, she said.
They also miss out on the social skills that come with in-person instruction. “Folks just don’t understand how to engage with professors or peers in the classroom,” Ralston said.
Ralston would welcome more oversight of correspondence programs. “If we want to continue to offer distance education to thousands of students incarcerated across California, they need more than just books through the mail,” she said.
Growing enrollment inside
While overall community college enrollment in the state has declined by 15% over the last 10 years, the number of community college students in California state prisons has increased. Whereas about 1,400 full-time equivalent students were enrolled in 2015-16, nearly 5,500 students were enrolled in 2018-19—reflecting an almost 300% increase in enrollment in the span of four years, according to the report.
Currently, 22 community colleges in California partner with the corrections department to provide in-person courses. Most of these programs lead to an associate degree, typically in the humanities, social sciences, and business. Five colleges are the main providers of correspondence courses: Coastline College; Feather River College; Lake Tahoe Community College; Lassen College; and Palo Verde College.
Shelly Blair, Coastline’s dean of innovative learning and career education, sees her college’s role as twofold: providing courses to supplement in-person instruction offered by other colleges so students can finish their degrees sooner and making education available for students who can’t take face-to-face classes. Seventeen percent of the overall student population at Coastline College is incarcerated.
Blair told Open Campus that Coastline has also piloted correspondence programs supported by the Canvas learning management system, which allows students to submit assignments via computer and submit questions to faculty.
“We have seen great engagement by the students, although there is a steep technological learning curve,” Blair said.
Much of the difference in course completion between face-to-face and correspondence courses can be attributed to the way the program is delivered, Blair said. “If a student is transferred or goes into lockdown, which happens quite often, access to their educational materials is removed,” she said. “This can happen for multiple weeks, once or more during a term, and is very disruptive to the process.”
Incarcerated students also say they have few opportunities to ask their instructors questions and they cannot seek out additional resources on their own because they don’t have access to the internet.
Challenges providing student support
California community colleges are generally only allowed to teach in-person classes at prisons in their district, so both Coastline and Feather River focus on offering correspondence courses to students all over the state. It can be difficult to provide comprehensive services for students who are not enrolled in their degree programs, said Katie Desmond, instructional dean at Feather River College, where incarcerated students make up around 15% of the total enrollment.
“The issue we are facing is that we are increasingly asked to ‘gap fill’ for other colleges that a) don’t offer all the courses a student needs to complete their degree, and b) when the in-person college courses are full,” she said. “We are committed to helping all students succeed, but when we ‘gap fill,’ these are not Feather River students.”
Incarcerated students studying via correspondence make up even larger proportions of total enrollment for some colleges, particularly those in rural areas. More than a third of the students at Lassen College, for example, are incarcerated. While Lassen teaches in-person classes to a small number of students at High Desert Prison in Susanville, most of their incarcerated students study via correspondence.
Last year, CalMatters reported that around half of Palo Verde’s students are incarcerated, and primarily enrolled in correspondence programs. In May 2023, the college president told CalMatters that the college could make up for lost enrollment due to the closure of the nearby Chuckawalla State Prison by gaining correspondence students from other prisons around the state. Palo Verde did not respond to a request for comment on the report.
The report came out one year after incarcerated students once again became eligible for Pell Grants, the federal financial aid for low-income students. People in prison had been unable to access the federal grants since the 1994 crime bill, which eliminated most higher education in prisons around the country.
Since 2014, California has allowed incarcerated students to use state funding for in-person community college programs. The state has primarily used the restored Pell Grants to expand its bachelor’s programs offered by four-year universities, which as of January were offered at nine prisons around the state. In January, California State Polytechnic University Humboldt’s bachelor’s in communication at Pelican Bay was the first in the nation to be approved for eligibility by the federal Education Department.
Students first earn an associate’s degree to gain admission to the bachelor’s programs, but not all associate’s degrees lead to transfer. The two degrees that Lassen offers at High Desert both offer transfer pathways, but two-thirds of the associate’s degrees they award do not lead to direct transfer. Administrators at multiple colleges said it can be difficult to offer all the required classes via correspondence, particularly lab sciences and public speaking classes.
The report also noted a significant gap between the demand for college and the number of available courses. Some people might wait up to three years to take their first community college course in person. Correspondence courses have a much greater ability to accommodate the demand for their courses than the colleges providing in-person courses due to space and staffing limitations.
The analysis also expressed concern that some students who have already earned degrees continue to take classes, while other students remain on waitlists. Almost 6% of incarcerated community college students enrolled in 2022-2023 had already earned an associate degree in a prior year and 12% already had more than 60 units, the number of credits required for an associate’s degree.
A spokesperson for the corrections department wrote in an email to Open Campus that the department generally prioritizes students who have some college classes but no associate’s degree, and continuing students who have an associate’s degree but who are missing courses needed to prepare them to move forward with a four-year degree program.
Blair said that Coastline’s recent agreement with the corrections department has a mandate to monitor the total number of units accrued by an individual student and prioritize moving them to degree completion.
Linking funding to performance
The report also noted that unlike the community college system outside, state funding for prison education is based solely on enrollment, with no link to student success.
The authors wrote that the current community college funding model lacks a strong incentive for colleges to improve their results by promoting incarcerated student success. They suggested modifying the funding formula to include a performance component, which could lead to more focus on student support services.
Representatives from both the California Department of Corrections and Rehabitions and the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office did not provide specific comments on the report, sayingthat they are still reviewing the findings and recommendations.
Although community college education inside is currently financed with state funding, the report’s authors also recommended that community colleges seek approval from the federal Education Department to be eligible to use Pell Grants to fund higher education inside. But that process has had a slow roll out, with many colleges citing the heavy administrative lift of meeting federal requirements for prison education programs and some even opting out. Seeking federal approval to offer Pell Grants could be especially challenging for community colleges, which often have fewer resources than four-year universities.
Blair of Coastline said they don’t currently see a need to seek Pell Grants for incarcerated community college students because they can provide zero-cost textbooks and course materials. “Incarcerated residents of California are eligible for fee waivers and if we can mitigate the cost of textbooks and supplies, there aren’t other financial resources needed” she said.
