On a recent February afternoon, I sat in the recreation room of my cellblock. Just a few feet away, confined to a wheelchair due to a leg injury, was Dominique Castile. He’s been incarcerated in New York for three years. He’s worried, as are a lot of other incarcerated people, about President Donald Trump’s desire to eliminate the Department of Education.
Recently, Dominique applied to join the college program here at Shawangunk, a maximum security prison in Wallkill, New York. “I was supposed to take my college placement test in a few weeks,” he said. “Now, everything is up in the air.”
The associate and bachelor’s degree programs have existed in Shawangunk for years. Even before PELL grants were restored to the incarcerated in 2023 after nearly thirty years, the group Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison provided higher education to prisoners through philanthropic grants. Still, Hudson Link students are required to apply for PELL grants. With the possibility of losing such an important federal grant, incarcerated people are at risk of losing out on vital tools to succeed in society and reduce their risk of recidivism.
The more that prisoners are equipped with education, the less likely we are to fall into the lifestyles or actions that led us to prison. According to Hudson Link, just 2 percent of its graduates return to prison for a new crime within three years of being released, compared with a national recidivism rate of 67 percent.
Dominique, who is trained as an arborist, won’t be able to utilize his trade due to his injury. He sees the college program as a stepping stone for a productive life on the outside: “As long as I obtain my degrees while I’m here and then follow up once I’m home, I can focus on giving back.”
I share Dominique’s concerns about the future of prison education programs.
I’ve been enrolled in college since 2022, when I was still housed in Sullivan Correctional Facility. I was transferred to Shawangunk after New York Governor Kathy Hochul closed Sullivan last November.
In January, I started my first semester in the bachelor’s program. If PELL grants are upended, there is a chance that my college education will abruptly end. That would be devastating.
College is one of the few programs offered in prison that many of us look forward to. Not only does it offer a chance to broaden our minds, it gives us an opportunity to rehabilitate.
A large percentage of incarcerated people will be released at some point. Isn’t it in the best interest of all to ensure that they have the tools to succeed?
This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.
