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Incarcerated students enrolled in a groundbreaking program at Pelican Bay State Prison to earn their bachelor’s degrees from Cal Poly Humboldt are now the first in the nation eligible to receive Pell Grants to pay for their education.

Access to the aid opened up this summer under federal legislation signed in 2020, reversing a previous policy that denied the financial aid to prisoners for nearly 30 years.

In a CPH news release, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education Amy Loyd said the change will provide the students “an opportunity to create a new vision and future for themselves by acquiring the knowledge, skills and abilities to thrive and build better lives.”

“We congratulate Cal Poly Humboldt for being the first school in the country to be approved to provide a Pell eligible prison education program inside of a correctional facility,” she said. “Education has the power to transform lives, families and communities and it opens doors to rewarding careers and meaningful civic engagement.”

The first cohort of 16 Department of Communications majors started classes this month, becoming the first inmates serving time in a California maximum security yard — the most restricted level of incarceration in the state — with access to in-person instruction as they work toward a four-year degree.

Slated to receive their diplomas in 2028, each of the students now enrolled already graduated from the College of the Redwoods' Pelican Bay Scholars program, which has given hundreds of inmates at the Crescent City facility access to community college classes since beginning in 2015, with more than 100 receiving an associate degree over the years.

“Education is a medicine for recidivism,” says Tony Wallin-Sato, a CPH graduate with his own experience behind bars who lobbied campus officials to bring the four-year degree offering to Pelican Bay. Wallin-Sato also helped launch the Humboldt chapter of Project Rebound — a program aiming to enroll and support formerly incarcerated students in the California State University system.

Studies show that access to educational opportunities in prison substantially reduces a person's likelihood of returning and increases their ability to find work once released, benefiting not only the individual but their families and society as a whole.

A Cal State systemwide strike secured what more than half a year of negotiations and partial strikes couldn’t: a deal. Negotiators of the California Faculty Association and California State University finalized a tentative agreement last tonight, the union said, ending what would have been a week-long strike at the nation’s largest four-year public university system.

The deal falls short of the 12 percent general salary increase the union sought for this academic year and instead provides a retroactive 5 percent raise to July 1, 2023 — consistent with what Cal State leaders were offering for the past several months.

The deal also provides a 5 percent salary increase starting July 1, 2024 for all 29,000 faculty — contingent on Cal State receiving at least the same amount of state funding lawmakers and the governor approved last summer. That’s a shift for Cal State officials — previously, they only wanted to offer a 5 percent raise next year if the state increased funding to the university.

“We’re messaging this as 10 percent in the next six months,” said Kevin Wehr, chair of the faculty union’s bargaining committee and a professor at Sacramento State.

The faculty union represents 29,000 professors, lecturers, librarians, sports coaches and mental health professionals.

Cal State officials argued since the fall they couldn’t afford the 12 percent raise the union sought. Also, the contracts it signed with other employee unions last year raised wages by 5 percent. Some of those contracts had provisions that would reopen salary negotiations if any other union received more than a 5 percent raise.

Cal State said last fall that every 1 percent raise in salary for faculty costs the system at least $26.5 million annually.

​“The agreement enables the CSU to fairly compensate its valued, world-class faculty while protecting the university system’s long-term financial sustainability,” said Cal State Chancellor Mildred García in a statement.