Bill To Restore Financial Aid For Incarcerated Students Moves To State House

In 1995, Oklahoma banned incarcerated students from accessing the largest source of state financial aid. Now, a new bill aims to restore that opportunity for the state's incarcerated population.

Senate Bill 11 wants to repeal that ban and allow incarcerated students access to state financial aid.

Institutions such as Oklahoma Baptist University and Oklahoma Christian University offer degree programs to prisoners. Schools get a certain amount of funds from the grant and choose which jailed students are best fit.

However, as those who are incarcerated cannot apply for the Oklahoma Tuition Aid Grant, they have to rely on donations or paying their own way. As such, lack of state financial aid limits the size of the prison programs.

The Prison Fellowship, a non-profit that helped to write this bill, said helping incarcerated students get their degrees benefits the state as a whole. 

“Higher education reduces the likelihood that someone will commit a crime by almost 50%, which is pretty significant so it not only helps the individual to completely turn their life around, to be productive while in prison, and then have more opportunities coming out of prison," Prison Fellowship's Sarah Decker said. "It makes our communities safer when we give these people the opportunity to turn their lives around."

SB11 has successfully passed through the Oklahoma Senate, and now goes to the Oklahoma House of Representatives.