NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Many colleges have shifted to online classes for the remainder of the school year, but for people who are incarcerated, distance learning remains a challenge.

More than 400 people in Tennessee prisons are earning college credits. The Tennessee Higher Education Initiative pairs accredited institutions with these students and helps pay their tuition. Its executive director, Molly Lasagna, said her program is lucky as one of the few with internet access. It serves the Turney Center Industrial Complex in Hickman County and the Northwest Correctional Complex in Lake County. However, she said, in prisons across the country, the pandemic is a likely setback for people working toward degrees.

"College partners are going online for the spring and summer, and the prison facilities don't have the ability to do that," she said, "and so those students are just going to get left behind, essentially."

Her organization now is offering emergency grants to help formerly incarcerated alumni and their families pay for child care, medical costs, rent or housing, utilities and other necessities during the pandemic.

Research from an advocacy group, The Prison Project, showed that access to higher education reduces the odds a person will end up back in prison after their release.

Norm, who prefers we not use his last name, lives in Rutherford County and obtained his associate's degree a few years ago while incarcerated. He said the program has huge implications for anyone returning to society, and added that he worries about those whose college tracks might be derailed.

"I'd say the biggest thing is it gives them hope for a future when they get out," he said. "You have so many obstacles ahead of you, just having a felony and coming out of prison."

According to the Sycamore Institute, a public policy research center, Tennessee's state prisons housed more than 30,000 people in 2018, about 95% of whom eventually will be released. That data is online at sycamoreinstitutetn.org.

Education statistics for Tennessee prisons are online at tbr.edu.


Support for this reporting was made possible by Lumina Foundation.


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The Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at the University of Florida and the University of South Florida are filing lawsuits against the deactivation orders issued by State University System Chancellor Raymond Rodrigues and Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The groups claim the looming orders come at a time when the conflict in the contested territories of Israel and Palestine are a matter of vital public discourse, depriving them of essential resources.

Hina Shamsi, director of the National Security Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, is part of the legal team representing the students.

"Our client has made a very brave decision to challenge state officials' attempt to restrict student speech, in a case that they and we hope sends a strong message that censorship in our schools is unconsitutional," said Shamsi.

The state's deactivation was based on the groups' alleged connection to a toolkit supporting Hamas' attack on Israel, which violates a Florida law against providing material support to foreign terrorist organizations. However, neither group has a formal relationship with the National Students for Justice in Palestine, which the Chancellor later acknoledged.

According to Shamsi, the groups recognize that colleges are contending with how to manage increased tensions and threats on their campuses while keeping students safe, but pointed out that it doesn't mean they have to abandon students' rights to do so.

"We take the weight and complexities of those issues seriously," she added, "but it is precisely in times of heightened crisis that university leaders must remain steadfast in their commitment to free speech, to open debate and peaceful dissent on campus."

While the Chancellor Rodrigues says they are reviewing legal and deactivation options, a spokesman for the governor's office said it was "reprehensible to see some university administrators, after the fact, creating bureaucratic roadblocks."



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Illinois high school seniors have new hurdles to overcome to get to college. High school students are waiting several extra weeks to get their hands on a newly designed Free Application for Student Aid. You might know it better as FAFSA.

The delay in the current process puts students behind when applying for financial aid.

Tabitha Jackson, senior seminar instructor for CICS Longwood High School, works with seniors at the charter school in Chicago. She said FAFSA has always been an Achilles heel, but the delay -- combined with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to repeal affirmative action -- has further exacerbated the process.

"It's so frustrating and it's so hurtful to let a student know, 'Because of who I am, I may not have some additional support or some additional support benefits of being able to go to this school,'" she said. "My question is to my students: 'If affirmative action stops at this level, what's next?'"

Jackson added a lot of students don't want debt, and financial aid helps determine which college they can afford. The 2024-25 FAFSA form is expected to be available by the end of 2023.

The cumbersome conditions coincide with a downward trend for high school seniors who are participating in career and college aid counseling.

Doug Keller, partnership lead with San Francisco-based YouthTruth, said its Class of 2022 Survey underscores troubling findings from respondents.

"We found that there's significant declines among particular student groups and their participating in counseling about how to pay for college -- specifically, among Hispanic or Latinx students, multi-racial and multi-ethnic students and boys," he explained.

Keller said the largest gap is among American Indian, Alaskan and other Indigenous students, with a 14% gap between those who want to go to college and those who expect to attend.


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A program giving high school students a taste of college and college credits along the way is celebrating its 33rd year of operation in Washington state.

The Running Start program offers 11th and 12th graders an opportunity to take college courses at the state's 34 community and technical colleges and three of its universities.

Julie Garver, director of policy and academic affairs for the Washington State Council of Presidents, which represents universities, said the program eases the transition to college-level learning.

"By being able to explore those things within high school, which is a safer environment or within those contexts, then students are able not only to get the confidence but to get those skills," Garver outlined. "They are not surprised and learning that transition while they're also taking college courses when they're at one of our campuses."

More than 27,000 high school students were enrolled in Running Start at community and technical colleges in the past academic year.

Jamie Traugott, director of dual credit and strategic enrollment initiatives for the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, said students in the program report feeling better prepared for the next step in their academic careers.

"The confidence of being able to complete a college-level class, but then really to be like, 'OK, I did this. What else can I get involved with?'" Traugott noted. "Or, 'Maybe, I thought I would go to a community technical college, but I never considered that I could also transfer to a four-year institution.'"

Traugott added the program has been helpful for the students who are able to access it but there is still more work to do to close equity gaps in enrollment.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.


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