Incarcerated graduates, who finished various educational and vocational programs in prison, wait for the start of their graduation ceremony at Folsom State Prison in Folsom, Calif., Thursday, May 25. Thousands of prisoners throughout the United States get their college degrees behind bars, most of them paid for by the federal Pell Grant program, which offers the neediest undergraduates tuition aid that they don’t have to repay.
That program is about to expand exponentially next month, giving about 30,000 more students behind bars some $130 million in financial aid per year.
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Thousands more prisoners across the US will get free college paid for by the government
The graduates lined up, brushing off their gowns and adjusting classmates’ tassels and stoles. As the graduation march played, the 85 men appeared to hoots and cheers from their families. They marched to the stage – one surrounded by barbed wire fence and constructed by fellow prisoners.
