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In 2019, the Alliance launched a program to strengthen the network of higher education in prison programs. The Higher Education in Prison Cohort Program promotes meaningful co-learning and collaboration. We do this by supporting program leaders and staff who are working to create, sustain and grow higher education in prison programs.
Cohorts consist of about a dozen programs from around the United States. Program participants are at different stages of their evolution, offer many different types of programming, and have various leadership structures. By bringing these programs together, we aim to foster a supportive environment where practitioners can collaborate and engage in collective problem solving.
In January 2025, the Alliance launched opened applications for the 2025 Cohort, an innovative initiative aimed at helping prison education programs (PEPs) incorporate remote work-based learning (WBL) into their curricula.
Working with our partners at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, Prison Studies Project at Harvard University and Research Collaborative on Higher Education in Prison at the University of Utah we conduct an annual survey to collect and publish data about U.S. programs offering higher education in prison.
The cohort and national directory are both part of the Higher Education in Prison Landscape Project, a partnership between the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, the Research Collaborative for Higher Education in Prison at the University of Utah (Erin Castro, Director) and the University of California Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy (Amy Lerman, Professor).
