Unclogging the Pipeline: Community College Admissions from the Perspective of Formerly Incarcerated Students

• In Event: Education and Prisoner Reentry: Processes and Impact

Abstract

For the first time in U.S. history, more than one in every 100 adults is currently incarcerated in jail or prison (The Pew Charitable Trusts 2008). Education has been widely recognized as a pathway to assimilation and economic mobility for people involved in the criminal justice system, education offers a path to increased employment, reduced recidivism, and improved quality of life (Gaes 2008), but little is known about how recently released prisoners experience college admissions.
Using qualitative methods of interview, journal entries, and ethnography with three recently released prisoners, this paper explores how formerly incarcerated students experience the process of college admissions at LaGuardia. The goal is to identify some of the obstacles that students with a history incarceration may encounter when enrolling in college and evaluate current admissions processes for students with history of incarceration entering LaGuardia. By exploring the process of enrollment for formerly incarcerated students, this study can offer recommendations for transforming recruitment, admissions, and financial aid processes to enroll more New Yorkers in higher education.

Author

• Cory Feldman, LaGuardia Community College