Posted on 01/06/2015 11:41:50 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
When I was in prison, I used to work out with heavy weights constantly. But when I started to understand that my best chances of survival were actually centered on education, I focused more on that instead, and it has made all the difference in the kind of life I now have. When I was released, having a student aid package was what kept me from having to go back into the underground economy in order to survive.
On Monday, Dec. 8, 2014, Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced a Correctional Education Guidance Package designed to improve the quality of education services provided to America’s estimated 60,000 incarcerated young people. The Guidance Package was released as part of a series of efforts to address interactions between youth and the criminal justice system and builds on recommendations in President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Task Force report.
The Guidance Package does not change any federal or state law, but instead articulates best-practices recommendations for providing education in correctional institutions based on respect for safety, prioritizing education in institutions, adequate funding, qualified educational staff and relevant curricula.
The Guidance Package clarifies Federal Pell Grant eligibility for students who are incarcerated in county jails or juvenile justice facilities (JJFs). Although incarcerated students may not receive loans under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, they may in some cases receive Federal Pell Grants.
As the Guidance Package makes clear, only those students who are incarcerated at a “Federal or State penal institution” or who are “subject to an involuntary civil commitment upon completion of a period of incarceration for a forcible or non-forcible sexual offense” are ineligible for Pell Grants. See 34 CFR sec. 668.32(c)(2)(ii).
Students incarcerated in county jails or JJFs, who are otherwise eligible, may receive Federal Pell Grants regardless of the student’s age, type or length of sentence, or whether the student was adjudicated as a juvenile or an adult. This also means that if you are in the county jail as a result of having a felony changed to a misdemeanor under Prop 47 or were sentenced to serve your sentence there under realignment, you are eligible for a Federal Pell Grant.
In addition, you can receive a Pell Grant if you are taking correspondence courses as long as your courses are toward an associate, bachelor or graduate degree. Also, your school should not provide more than 50 percent of its courses or serve more than 50 percent of its students through correspondence. (The school also may not have more than 25 percent incarcerated students.)
Students seeking Pell Grants must apply using the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form. The only conviction “box” on the form asks if the applicant has ever been convicted of a drug possession or sale offense while receiving federal student aid.
California has made a decision to house a greater number of prisoners in the county jails. If you are on the outside reading this and are concerned about folks occupying cages in local detention facilities, please reach out and tell someone on the inside.
If we fail to tell the people about something like this, we are reconstructing Juneteenth – the time that enslaved people in south Texas were not told they were freed until several years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
For those of you on the inside reading this, please spread the word!
Dorsey Nunn is executive director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC), which organizes communities directly impacted by the criminal justice system. He is also a co-founder of All of Us or None, a project of LSPC by and for formerly incarcerated people working for their civil and human rights. Email him at info@prisonerswithchildren.org.
Don’t forget the illegals! They should be first in line!
Meanwhile, my children couldn’t get Pell Grants and my husband and I owe almost the equal of our mortgage now in parent loans. Two children just finishing college in science majors, both got nice scholarships and the max of their own student loans. However, they each still owed approx $15,000 per year for the rest of tuition, room and board, books, etc. and would not have been able to attend if we hadn’t taken out parent loans. The federal govt is charging us 6-7% interest on the loans and tacked on a 4% origination fee at the start of each loan. These are the federal student loans set up by the Obamacare legislation which took over the student loan industry to help pay for the healthcare reform.
Neither of our children were eligible for Pell Grants as hubby and I are both still married to each other and have always worked full-time, never on govt. assistance, and my children didn’t become teenage parents.
These convicts get Pell Grants.... the Boston Marathon Bomber Brothers got Pell Grants and they and their parents weren’t even American born. But not my bright, moral, working middle-class American family children.
Can you point me to place where Boston bombers getting Pell grants is cited? I want to get that out there more...thanks...and I will go search too!
If you can’t take the prisoner to the liberal indoctrination center, take the liberal indoctrination center to the prisoner!
“Family Of Marathon Bombing Suspects Received $100,000 In Benefits”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.