American prison higher education expanded then collapsed with federal Pell Grant policy shifts.

Evidence

The first course taught in an American correctional facility was an “instruction in morals and religion through Bible reading” at the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia in 1790 (Lagemann, 2017). This trend of teaching morals and religion to the prison population became the norm and quickly spread across the country. In 1965, however, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Higher Education Act into law, individuals incarcerated in state and federal correctional facilities became eligible for Pell Grant awards for higher education. Within the next few years, programs offering college in jails and prisons spread across the country, and by the early 1990s, funded by the Pell Grant program, nearly every jail and prison in the United States was offering some form of higher educational coursework (Agrawal, 2018). … Yet, when President Bill Clinton signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act in 1994, federal aid awards for students in jails and prisons were quickly withdrawn, thrusting prison education programs into hotly contested political issue, with arguments often anchored to the perception of the fundamental humanity, or lack thereof, of students in jails and prisons (Agrawal, 2018). — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 397

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the pedagogical history being traced: prison teaching began as morals and religion, mirroring how schooling for the poor and colonized also began in moral instruction. — connects to: Opponents of prison college funding frame incarcerated students as undeserving outsiders. — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 398; The 1994 crime bill’s Pell Grant ban dismantled prison higher education.; The 1994 crime bill deliberately destroyed higher education in prisons — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 153 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: What exactly did the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act say about Pell eligibility, and when was it later restored under the Second Chance Pell program?

Broader Connections

• The 1994 crime bill’s Pell Grant ban dismantled prison higher education. #corroborates (0.92)
• The 1994 crime bill deliberately destroyed higher education in prisons #corroborates (0.92) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 153