Pursuing higher education while raising a family and after experiencing incarceration was no small feat. Formerly incarcerated parents often go to extraordinary lengths to rebuild our lives and support our families, and I am no exception. For many of us, pursuing a college degree is a key part of that journey.
Higher education offers formerly incarcerated or reentry student parents like me a second chance to build pathways to multi-generational success. But we need to be able to afford school in the first place. And, on this front, there is clear room for improvement: The cost of college remains a major barrier for too many reentry student parents.
California’s higher education system wasn’t designed with reentry students in mind: Only one in three California institutions provides reentry services, and yet there are thousands of these students across the entire state, including every undergraduate University of California campus…