08/16/2025
In a groundbreaking ceremony held on June 9, 2023, seven incarcerated individuals, including parolees, earned associate degrees in general studies from the University of New Haven at Connecticut’s MacDougall‑Walker Correctional Institution. This marked the first graduating class under a partnership between UNH’s Prison Education Program and the Yale Prison Education Initiative, which began in 2021 and now forms part of a growing consortium with 15 institutions nationwide. Among the graduates was Marcus Harvin, a New Haven native and parolee recently released after serving time for a DUI incident. Harvin noted with pride that many doubted his story until he showed them both his Yale and prison ID cards, underscoring the profound impact of earning a degree under such extraordinary circumstances.
This initiative builds on Yale’s long-standing commitment, through the Yale Prison Education Initiative founded in 2016, to deliver academically rigorous, credit-bearing liberal arts courses inside correctional facilities. With a boost from a $1.5 million Mellon Foundation grant in 2021, the collaboration expanded dramatically: the number of offered courses increased from just four to over thirty annually, and Yale credits are now transferable toward UNH’s associate degree. At the commencement, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont praised the initiative’s transformative potential, stressing that education helps define prisoners’ futures and can become their meaningful legacy. Supporting data from UNH highlights that only a little over 20% of inmates access higher education behind bars, but those who do are far less prone to disciplinary issues or reoffending post-release.