‘A Natural Progression’
Published Sep 07, 2021
By Alexis Gravely
At the end of last year, Congress directed the Department of Education to make changes to federal financial aid by allowing incarcerated students to access Pell Grants and removing the drug conviction question from the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. But there’s still one more action the Legislature can take to boost access to higher education for those in the criminal justice system — guiding colleges and universities to remove criminal history questions from their admissions processes.
Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, reintroduced a bill at the beginning of August that would do just that. Called the Beyond the Box for Higher Education Act of 2021, it would direct the department to issue guidance and recommendations for institutions on removing criminal and juvenile justice questions from admissions applications.
About 72 percent of institutions require applicants to disclose their criminal history, according to research conducted by the Institute for Higher Education Policy. In a recent report, IHEP noted that violent or sex offense convictions are most likely to result in automatic denials, but many colleges and universities are also considering drug and alcohol convictions, youth offender adjudications, and pending misdemeanors or misdemeanor arrests in their admissions decisions.
This barrier to admission is especially prominent for students of color, specifically Black and Latinx men, who are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system, said Mamie Voight, interim president at IHEP.
Read the full article at Inside Higher Ed
