In the spring of 2019, word reached the inmates at M.C.I.-Shirley, a medium security men’s prison in Shirley, Mass., that Boston College was starting a bachelor’s degree program inside the facility. 

The prospect seemed unlikely to Nurudeen Alabi, who had been incarcerated for more than a decade, beginning when he was 17. He was first acquainted with the carceral system even earlier as a child, and felt fairly confident he understood how it worked at this point. A bachelor’s degree, and certainly one from the likes of B.C., prestigious by any standards, was not in the cards for guys like him.

“Being somebody that’s incarcerated, you have limitations,” Alabi said. “You’re limited to what you’re capable of doing, even though you could possibly do more. Just being in that mindset, I never thought college was anywhere near my future.”

It’s this very narrative that B.C. aims to break down. The B.C. Prison Education Program (BCPEP) is designed to provide incarcerated people a second, or sometimes first, chance at recognizing and cultivating the value they still have to offer the world. Grounded in the university’s most central principles, Jesuit values, the initiative has quickly distinguished itself based on just how far it’s willing to go to affirm the humanity of those others would prefer to ignore. 

Degrees earned through BCPEP come with no asterisk. The students are considered B.C. students in full and promised the same level of rigor as their traditional peers. They take many of the same classes, taught by the same longstanding professors. What’s more, any students who complete their prison sentence before their studies are guaranteed to be able to continue their program, post-release, on B.C.’s main campus in Chestnut Hill, Mass. 

“By Boston College just going in there, offering not a certificate but a real degree, helping them to realize that they matter, we are taking care of the whole person,” said Sister Jeanmarie Gribaudo, a B.C. faculty member whom one colleague described as the “den mother” of BCPEP. “I think that this is like hand in glove with the Jesuit mission.” 

Nurudeen Alabi was the first BCPEP student to graduate on the Chestnut Hill campus. Photo courtesy of Nurudeen Alabi

The director of BCPEP, Patrick Conway, took the helm in 2021 while wrapping up his doctorate at B.C. on prison education policy and practice. He knows how rare it is for an institution to commit to this work as deeply as B.C., which has rallied support from the highest levels of the administration, as well as faculty, staff, and students across schools and programs clamoring to participate. He’s currently fielding a waitlist of educators hoping to get involved.

“There is a desire to go into these spaces, and not be putting yourself above the students who are there, but recognize that there’s a mutuality and the learning process goes both ways,” Conway said. He, too, attributes this enthusiasm to the power of the Jesuit tradition at B.C. and its motto, “Being men and women for and with others.” “It’s more than a slogan,” he said. 

For Alabi, it would take becoming one of the first students in BCPEP to fully shake his skepticism. Among the nearly 100 who applied to the inaugural cohort, he was one of 16 admitted. By the fall of 2019, he found himself sitting in his first class, Russian literature, and understood quickly that the professions of academic rigor had not been exaggerated. 

Today, BCPEP is the largest provider of higher education in prison in Massachusetts. Since Alabi’s cohort, another five have followed, and the admissions process for a seventh is now underway. To apply, students must have a high school diploma or its equivalent, in addition to writing a personal essay, taking a reading analysis test, and completing an interview. This past semester, for the first time, the program expanded to a medium security women’s prison, M.C.I.-Framingham, in Framingham, Mass. 

Of the 110 total students BCPEP has admitted so far, both men and women, around 20 have been released and moved over to the Chestnut Hill campus to continue (or complete) their degrees. In 2022, after 15 years in prison, Alabi became the first BCPEP student to go free. In 2025, he was the first to walk at commencement on the outside. This spring, he started a new job at the New England Board of Higher Education advocating for prison education expansion across the region. 

Granting opportunity

The road of prison education in America has been far from linear. Policy, like public perception, has had a tendency to flip flop on the question of whether education, and especially higher education, is a right or a luxury, as well as who is deserving of either. Is incarceration for punishment or rehabilitation? 

In the early 70s, incarcerated people became eligible for Basic Educational Opportunities Grants, now known as Pell Grants, for the first time. They could receive federal financial aid to put towards a higher education without taking out a loan or risking debt. And as students found a way to pay, the number of prisons with degree-granting programs shot up, from 237 in 1976 to 772 in 1990.

The boom didn’t last long. By 1994, President Clinton was ushering in a new period of restriction, eliminating Pell-eligibility for the incarcerated once again. Then, like now, many wondered why criminals should receive for free the kind of education many more lawful, middle-class folk couldn’t afford themselves. Rehabilitation for those who have committed heinous offenses can be a hard pill to swallow, especially for victims and their families. Programs started to shutter, like in New York, where nearly 1,100 incarcerated people earned a college degree in 1991, compared to 141 in 2011. 

At the same time, evidence was mounting for the most prevalently cited justification for prison education: reduced recidivism (and, thus, saved tax dollars). In 2013, the RAND Corporation published the definitive study on the matter, estimating those who participate in education programs to be 43 percent less likely to recidivate. By 2016, an Obama-era pilot effort had reinstated Pell grants for the incarcerated enrolled in certain partner colleges, or “experimental sites.” Those partnerships expanded under Trump, and in 2023, the Biden administration oversaw the return of Pell-eligibility for inmates across the board.  

As BCPEP wasn’t among the Pell-supported “experimental sites” when it began in 2019, it relied on other funding. The primary donors were an anonymous couple, who had ties to B.C. and were already supporting the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) out of Bard College, a longtime leader in the prison education space. The couple helped engineer a relationship between B.C. and BPI, still affiliated today, which gave way to the original launch of BCPEP. 

As it stands, support for BCPEP continues to come from a mix of sources, including the anonymous donors who started it all, along with other individual contributors, private grants, and state and federal funding. Though more difficult, being forced to be self-sustaining from the beginning may have ultimately been a blessing. Even now, federal support is helpful but not the difference between the program’s survival and collapse. 

Patrick Conway, the BCPEP director, offered another benefit of more involved fundraising: It requires a greater investment of time and resources from the university, which in turn reinforces its value for the initiative. That buy-in, he said, keeps BCPEP from “being perceived as a very peripheral program, rather than part of the core mission.”

‘They read everything’

On the walls of the classroom at M.C.I.-Shirley hang all manner of B.C. swag. Photos of campus are posted beside pennants beside a picture one BCPEP student drew of the B.C. eagle. 

“I told them the first day that this was like an embassy,” said Susan Roberts, a veteran of the B.C. English department now dedicated to teaching at BCPEP in her retirement. “In this room, this is Boston College.” 

At the embassy, students all pursue an applied liberal arts degree, which involves two key components: a traditional liberal arts curriculum, with classic subjects like English, history, philosophy, and theology; and a “professional core,” spanning courses in entrepreneurship, design thinking, and strategic leadership, to map the liberal arts skills onto modern work environments. There are also non-academic offerings, including an annual 5K, reflective retreat, and classical music concert series. Soon, for the first time in Massachusetts, BCPEP will facilitate paid internships, with salaries of $25 per hour, for two students to work for the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison from inside M.C.I.-Shirley.

To ease the transition to college, students tend to take two classes their first term. From there, they’re guaranteed at least three per semester. In total, nine to 11 courses run usually any given fall or spring, Conway said, along with another three to five over the summer. Though pacing varies, the typical time to graduate sits around four and a half years, he added.

As advertised, the courses at BCPEP closely resemble those offered on the main B.C. campus. In the past, Roberts has taught Studies in Poetry and Apocalypse Narratives. She, like other colleagues, described basing the content on classes she’d taught in Chestnut Hill, while making adjustments to appeal more to potential interests of an incarcerated population.

Many BCPEP teachers reported being nervous, or at least uncertain, to be teaching in a prison for the first time. In the end, they were universally impressed with what they found. Intellectually, they said, the BCPEP students are on par with their traditional peers. In terms of their eagerness, the inmates tend to be legions beyond the reference point.

“They read everything. Everything you give them, they read,” said Brian Harrington, a B.C. alumnus and the former chief marketing officer of Zipcar. Now teaching entrepreneurship at BCPEP, he often brings guests into class to talk about their successful careers. Uniformly, he said, they tell him his students are the most engaged of any they’ve addressed.

Part of the students’ dedication to their education, Harington imagines, stems from their having the time for it. At the very least, prison is boring, BCPEP teachers and students agree. The hunger to learn is wrapped up in a desire, and a need, for engagement and stimulation of any kind.

"I believe my class gives them agency in a place where hopes and dreams are crushed most days."

Of course, there’s something deeper going on, too. “I believe my class gives them agency in a place where hopes and dreams are crushed most days,” Harrington said. Especially given the practical aspect of his course, where students develop their own idea for a business, they might begin to imagine the possibilities for a future after prison. 

Anthony Bayes graduated from BCPEP this spring and was released from M.C.I.-Shirley a few weeks later. Despite being free now, he spoke to a universal way the program, and particularly its professors, lift up students, no matter the length of their sentence.

“It’s just the level of care and respect that we get from faculty that matters most to me,” Bayes said. “In prison, you feel like nothing you really have to say matters; you’re always going to be a second-class person. But when you’re in B.C., they treat you no different.”

It will come as no surprise to know there are still plenty of challenges with teaching and learning in prison. When BCPEP began, students had no access to technology and handwrote all their assignments. While there are now laptops that include Microsoft apps and a modified version of JSTOR, basic gaps in digital tools or knowledge remain a barrier. It’s difficult, Harrington said for instance, to teach modern marketing to students who have never seen or used Google Reviews. 

Susan Roberts added that students’ lives outside the classroom may impede their academic progress. One of hers was recently forced to withdraw after a prolonged period in solitary confinement. Others have missed class or been pulled out early because their lawyers came to visit. A few weeks ago, she submitted final grades for two students who never handed in the last assignment; she didn’t know why not. “There’s a whole infrastructure of the prison that we have no access to, and no interaction with, that can be very interruptive,” she said.

Tensions between the inmates can present another point of concern. In the early days of BCPEP, Bayes said, those not involved or admitted could seem resentful of those who were and accuse them of thinking they were above the rest. In general, Nurudeen Alabi said being a BCPEP student made him feel vulnerable among the other incarcerated because they knew he needed to stay out of trouble. He didn’t want to be perceived as weak; he also couldn’t do anything to risk his spot in the program.

Over time, though, both Bayes and Alabi reported feeling like BCPEP spurred a broad culture shift at M.C.I.-Shirley for the better. For one, as Alabi mentioned, wanting to be or remain in the program encouraged good behavior. For another, as the program grew, more and more students brought their education outside the classroom, continuing those conversations, and sharing content with others. 

“It went from guys talking about selling drugs or doing dumb stuff to, ‘Yo, what did you get on that paper? Oh, I’m so excited to talk about X, Y, and Z next week,’” Bayes said. “It just changed the conversation and the tone and the mood around camp.” 

“Guys were talking about doing the right things — positive stuff — as opposed to all the B.S. that got guys there in the first place.”

Eagles Bridging the Gap

When Alabi was released in 2022, he was free but not unburdened.

He struggled in the transition back to a life on the outside that had changed drastically since he’d last known it as a teenager. He needed to find employment and housing. He needed to learn to drive and figure out how to afford a car and then insure it. He needed to learn how to pay taxes. He needed to learn how to use Google. “That Google helped a lot,” he recalled, with a laugh.

When it came to his education, a whole other host of specific changes and challenges emerged. He was still discovering Google, let alone mastering the whirlwind of online tools commonly used in college classes today. He needed to create an email address. He needed to know how to submit assignments through Canvas and post on discussion boards and take online classes and tests and search for library books. 

As the first of BCPEP’s students to make it onto the Chestnut Hill campus, Alabi navigated reentry largely on his own. B.C. had yet to build much in the way of infrastructure to support students’ transition, so he enrolled in a program at nearby Tufts University specializing in just that. 

Alabi recalled his hesitance to take full advantage of B.C. opportunities, even as Conway encouraged him to do so. “He’d always say, ‘This is your campus, too. This is your campus, too,’” Alabi said. “And I never understood why he's saying [that]. In my head, I'm like, ‘This is not my campus. I'm just a visitor. I'm lucky to be here.’”

The arrival of one more student from M.C.I.-Shirley opened up Alabi’s experience. With a partner by his side, he felt more at ease using various resources, like the dining hall or the library. He started attending B.C. events, likes sports matches. “If it’s interesting, I’m gonna go and be part of the program, be part of the school,” he said.

As more BCPEP students have made their way over to Chestnut Hill, the structures and community of support have grown as well. Alabi serves as a mentor and guide to other formerly incarcerated students. There is a course dedicated in part to easing their transition, along with a team of BCPEP staff organized to look out for the students and ensure they’re on track. “I honestly think that what we do on campus is just as transformative as what we’re doing on the inside,” Conway said.

Deepening relationships between BCPEP and traditional B.C. students has been a particular focus of late. Alabi is one of the founders of a student group called Eagles Bridging the Gap, designed to connect the two groups. He said it’s been gratifying to see others seek to broaden their understanding of what the formerly incarcerated are really like.

Sister Jeanmarie Gribaudo described how having insight into the incarcerated experience will help all B.C. students help the world. “The kids from Boston College, they're extraordinarily academically gifted, and they need to know about these issues because they're going to be the ones in boardrooms and everything else, where they can speak up and make a difference,” she said. 

You can reach LearningWell Reporter Mollie Ames at mames@learningwellmag.org with comments, ideas, or tips.