Prisoners in Connecticut Receiving College Education

Wesleyan University, one of the more selective colleges in the Northeast, has started a new program that offers inmates in the high security Chesire Correctional Institution the oppurtunity for an elite higher education. Although other colleges such as Boston University have had similar programs, Wesleyan University has taken their program to the next level; the course is very academically rigorous, and it doesn't turn any prisoner away based on their crime, no matter how henoius. As of now, the university is conducting this program as an experiment, selecting only 20 out of the 120 that applied for this oppurtunity. On Wednsdays, students who live on campus come to the prison for joint discussion groups with the inmates. However, since many of the men in the prison class are made up for serious offenders, including murder and kidnapping, many of them are in jail for life and won't get to use their college credits for a career, but the ones that do get released will be able to use their credits. And although this program has taken this pre exsisting idea to new heights, it comes as no surprise considering Wesleyan University's history of community interaction and its Methodist roots, named after founder John Wesleyan. Their education is being sponsered financially by the Bard Prison Intitiative, who gave Wesleyan Univeristy 300,000 dollars for the program, and is being financed by them for the next two years in full, and the two after that partially.
I think this is a very interesting social experiment and it gives the prisoners a chance to learn and take full advantage of a higher education oppurtunity. However, I wonder who is going to pay for their education after the Bard Prison Intitivative stops giving Wesleyan University the money to sponsor it. It is ironic that in prison, these men come upon oppurtunities that might have never had if they stayed out of jail. So in that respect, it doesn't really help the kids on the streets who think it's ok to do bad things because hay, if they go to jail, they might get a free education too. But I do think for some of the prisoners that will be released, this a great oppurtunity to make something of their lives, and hopefully they won't continue in their previous behavior.

The article is on newyorktimes.com