The restoration of access to New York’s need-based Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) for college-in-prison is monumental. Receiving an education behind bars permanently changed my life in many ways. A year into receiving my associate degree through the Bard Prison Initiative, there was no doubt… Read More
BPI Blog
Tag: College in Prison
TAP is Back
Dear Friends, Today, after 26 years – at last – New York State has repealed its ban on incarcerated people receiving TAP grants. In our field – since the evisceration of education in prison in the mid-1990s – the fundamental goal has been the restoration… Read More
TAP Fellow Opinion: In Pursuit of Educational Equity & Justice
I have never felt utter despair and failure more than when I began my incarceration. That was the most difficult, seemingly hopeless point of my life—rock bottom, so to speak. I ultimately served a decade in prison. My life took yet another unexpected turn from… Read More
TAP: A Long Time Coming
Incarcerated students' ability to access New York's Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) has been restored in New York State after 26 years of a senseless and destructive ban. This victory is a long time in the making. With BPI's Senior Government Affairs Officer Dyjuan Tatro '18… Read More
Film Screening: “Education Not Incarceration”
Bard Prison Initiative Consortium For the Liberal Arts In Prison Film Screening: "Education Not Incarceration" BPI is proud to kick off a new partnership with Incarceration Nations Network and the Open Society University Network, which supports educational projects in carceral spaces outside of the United… Read More
Press Release: TURN ON THE TAP NY PRAISES GOVERNOR HOCHUL FOR INCLUDING TUITION ASSISTANCE FOR INCARCERATED NEW YORKERS IN BUDGET
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 18, 2022 CONTACT: Eric Koch | ericdkoch@gmail.com TURN ON THE TAP NY PRAISES GOVERNOR HOCHUL FOR INCLUDING TUITION ASSISTANCE FOR INCARCERATED NEW YORKERS IN BUDGET Siena Poll Today Showed Huge, Bipartisan Majorities For Programs That Lower Barriers to Incarcerated New Yorkers Re-Entering Society ALBANY,… Read More
TAP Fellow Opinion: Restoring Tuition Assistance for Incarcerated Students in New York
In her first State of the State address since taking office, New York Governor Kathy Hochul outlined an agenda that included repealing the 27-year ban on college tuition assistance, also known as TAP, for incarcerated students. In 1995, when the ban was first instituted, incarcerated… Read More
BPI in Conversation – 50 Years: The Kerner Commission, Mass Incarceration & College-in-Prison
This lunchtime conversation took place on October 27th at 12pm eastern. Author and advocate Reverend Vivian Nixon; MacArthur Fellow, founder of Freedom Reads, and poet Reginald Dwayne Betts Esq; and BPI founder and executive director Max Kenner joined in a conversation moderated by historian Dr.… Read More
Learning to Code: Alumni Reflect on Their Experience in BPI’s Restart Program
BPI launched Restart in 2018 through the generous support of the National Science Foundation to build bridges between computer science training in prison and computer science entrepreneurialism after prison. Through the Restart program, BPI explored the question: "does informal learning offer an under-utilized pathway for… Read More