Warden & Education Dept.

Within your institution is a very small group of individuals who, if given the opportunity, have the desire, the drive and the ability to turn their lives around. Granted, this may only be 1 to 2 percent of your population, but it is a unique group. And, it is a group that is not being adequately served by the current prison programs you are able to offer.

You have your GED program for the 54% who do not have their high school diploma and have not yet obtained their GED. Of course, only a small percentage of those individuals are interested in doing the hard work necessary to obtain their GED. Those that do so, should be offered the opportunity to continue on in their education to an associates degree, and maybe someday even to a bachelors degree. Individuals who earn their GED while in prison are given special priority in the awarding of scholarship grants.

Then there are the 46% who already have their high school diploma or GED. We realize, as you do, that most of these individuals lack the desire, drive or ability to pursue and endure the intellectual rigors inherent in earning a college education. Let’s face it, college level study involves a lot of hard work. It’s much easier simply to watch television, do leather craft or pottery in the hobby shop or play basketball.

But for that small number of individuals who desperately desire something better in life and are willing to work hard to get it, practically speaking, today’s prison system offers them little to nothing.

In your facility, 2% of your population (those that would jump at the opportunity to earn a college education) might only represent 10-20 people; a number too small, given the current budget constraints, for you to invest a lot of time. That’s why the Prison Education Foundation has streamlined this program and made it uniquely effective, yet surprisingly simple.

You can now offer a turn-key post-secondary educational program that costs your facility nothing and takes almost no investment of time on your part.

Simply download and print the “COLLEGE EDUCATION OPPORTUNITY NOTICE” contained within this section. Then permanently post it in your institution’s education department, chapel office, library and housing units. This will then make your entire population aware of the opportunity.

From there you have two options. First, you may download a supply of the Prison Education Foundation Scholarship Applications for use in your education department. Simply give each inmate who inquires about the program an application. The inmate can then complete the application and mail it to the Prison Education Foundation.

Your second option is simply to advise them to write the Prison Education Foundation directly, or have one of their family members contact the Prison Education Foundation, and request that a Scholarship Application be sent to them.

This is a much needed program and will fill a gap in the education departments of today’s U.S. prisons.

Please download and print our one page “COLLEGE EDUCATION OPPORTUNITY NOTICE” so that it can be posted in your institution.

Click here to download the College Education Opportunity Notice

Click here to download the Prison Education Foundation Scholarship Application