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Pell Grants For Prisoners: An Old Argument Revisited [NPR.org]

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It's an old and controversial question: Should federal Pell grants be used to help prisoners pay for college?

Tomorrow, at a prison in Jessup, Md., Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Attorney General Loretta Lynch are expected to unveil a program to do just that. The new plan would create a limited pilot program allowing some students in prison to use Pell grants to pay for college classes.

The key word there is "limited" — because there's only so much the administration can do. To understand why, we have to go back to November 1993.

The Crime Bill

The era of Three Strikes had begun, and lawmakers in Washington were in a bipartisan race to prove they were tough on crime.

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican, introduced an amendment that would ultimately ban prisoners from receiving Pell grants. Her argument then: "Because prisoners have zero income, they have been able to step to the front of the line and push law-abiding citizens out of the way," she said on the Senate floor (though Pell grants go to any and all who apply and meet the criteria).

 

[For more of this story, written by Gabrielle Emanuel, go to http://www.npr.org/sections/ed...d-argument-revisited]

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