Borrowing Freedom: Formerly Incarcerated Women and the Gender Violence of the Post-Secondary Education Reimbursement Fund

• In Event: World-making in the Carceral Classroom: Centering Abolition Feminism as an Analytic Lens

Abstract

Objective: This paper explores how a Texas-based state loan program for incarcerated individuals, the Post-Secondary Education Reimbursement (PSER), impacts formerly incarcerated women (FIW). While previous research emphasizes student debt burdens (Kim & Chatterjee, 2021; Yannelis & Tracey, 2022), it neglects predatory loan practices within carceral environments, particularly when linked to parole. Using an abolitionist feminist framework, this analysis demonstrates how PSER perpetuates gender violence by providing funds to offset the cost of accessing higher education in carceral facilities while simultaneously maintaining and expanding carceral control. It also highlights the continuation of gendered violence and its connection to systems of oppression like capitalism, demonstrating how access to education becomes another space of systemic harm for FIW.

Theoretical Framework: This study employs an abolition feminist framework (Davis et al., 2023) to analyze how systems operate and intersect. It shows how the PSER fund interacts with colleges, the carceral system, and financial structures to sustain gender violence.

Methodology & Data: This study uses pláticas (Bernal, 1998; Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016) with FIW who used PSER funds. Conducted from December 2024 to January 2025, the pláticas explore FIWs’ experiences accessing, using, and navigating the consequences of using the PSER while incarcerated and post-release.

Emerging Findings: Emerging findings show carceral creep (Davis et al., 2023), where carceral logics extend into unrelated areas like postsecondary education via the PSER fund, claiming to solve problems but maintaining gender violence through control. Gennie, a study participant, regrets using PSER, wishing college administrators had provided more information. She states,

“‘Hey, you know it’s possible that you could still owe this fee, they don’t let you off parole or they don’t let you off your ankle monitor. Do you still wanna go?’ And I’d be like, ‘Hell no, take this college shit and shove it up your ass.’ I’m not doing none of that because having any type of fees when you leave creates a barrier.”

Gennie’s reflection reveals PSER as a form of carceral creep (Davis et al., 2023), appearing as an educational opportunity but used to maintain control post-release, as repayment is a condition of parole. This demonstrates how PSER perpetuates gender violence and operates within systems of oppression. It also overlooks the absence of Pell Grants in women’s carceral facilities.

Scholarly Significance: The scholarly significance of this paper lies in its application of an abolition feminism framework (Davis et al., 2023) to analyze the ongoing gendered violence caused by predatory loan practices. This framework uncovers not only the gender violence of providing a loan linked to parole repayment but also demonstrates how it reproduces gender violence as it is connected to capitalism and patriarchy. When institutions like TDCJ have the capacity to improve and choose not to, that inaction becomes a conscious decision. The PSER fund’s structure, used predominantly by women, while men in Texas carceral facilities have access to Pell Grants, illustrates the structural reproduction of gender violence. Thus, the PSER fund transforms from mere financial support into a site of gendered and economic violence.

Author

• Armando Lizarraga, University of Texas at Austin