Technology Is Helping Prison Education Programs Scale. What’s the Catch?

Colleges and universities with prison education programs are increasingly using technology to deliver instruction to incarcerated individuals, even with strict limitations on internet access in correctional facilities.But the technology is also raising serious questions about quality.Those are among the findings of a new report from Ithaka S+R, a nonprofit education consultancy, that uses original and existing research to describe the landscape of prison education programs today and the challenges they face around quality, funding and scalability.Only a tiny percentage of U.S. colleges offer prison education programs—just 200, or roughly 4 percent, according to the report. Technology is one of the ways colleges are trying to scale their prison education programs to reach more students, including students out of state.More than 1.5 million people—equivalent to the combined populations of South Dakota and Vermont—are incarcerated in U.S. state and federal prisons today, but the vast majority (95 percent) will eventually be released.