Congress Restores Access to Pell Grants for Incarcerated Students Seeking a Second Chance

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Prison Fellowship^®, the nation's largest Christian nonprofit serving prisoners, former prisoners, and their families, applauded the recent actions of the U.S. Congress in restoring access to Pell Grants for incarcerated students as a provision within the Fiscal Year 2021 omnibus package.

"Pell Grant access offers people in prison the opportunity to pursue good citizenship behind and beyond bars," said James Ackerman, President and CEO of Prison Fellowship. "We applaud federal policymakers—and particularly Secretary DeVos, the White House, bipartisan cosponsors of the REAL Act, and higher education leaders like Senators Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray and Representatives Virginia Foxx and Bobby Scott—for moving this historic reform to transform lives, livelihoods, and communities across the finish line."

"Hope is such a powerful gift," said Heather Rice-Minus, Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Church Mobilization for Prison Fellowship.  "Access to Pell Grants has been denied to aspiring incarcerated students for a quarter century. Today's inclusion of this reform opens a new window of hope that will pay back dividends in the form of safer communities inside and outside corrections facilities for decades to come."

In the 116^th Congress, Prison Fellowship and a wide variety of business, faith-based, civil rights, and conservative organizations, working with Democratic and Republican lawmakers, pressed for a full lift of the Pell ban for incarcerated students in order for such transformative opportunities to expand.