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Ineligible Anyway: Evidence on the Barriers to Pell Eligibility for Prisoners in the Second Chance Pell Pilot Program in Pennsylvania Prisons

Abstract Since the mid-1990s scholars, practitioners and policy-makers have consistently identified the ban on Pell eligibility for prisoners as the primary cause for the decline of post-secondary education programs in prisons nationwide. In 2015, the Second Chance Pell (SCP) pilot program authorized reinstatement of Pell eligibility for prisoners with the goal of providing post-secondary educational opportunities in prisons. However, SCP programs used fewer than half of the available Pell grants in the first three years of the program. We analyze novel data from a sample of individuals in Pennsylvania prisons to estimate population-level eligibility for SCP. We find demand in excess and uptake far below availability, which is a consequence of multiple barriers to eligibility. In the absence of significant reforms designed to address collateral ineligibility for Pell grants among the population of incarcerated individuals, there will be systematically low utilization of Pell-funded higher education programming in prisons.