Yale Prison Education Initiative Fundraiser

Since 2018, the Yale Prison Education Initiative has brought transformative access to credit-bearing liberal arts courses and programming to incarcerated students behind bars and supported students coming home from prison, while serving as inspiration for other universities across the country looking to our example and joining the work of higher education in prison.

In June 2023, we celebrated our first degree graduation through our partnership with University of New Haven — this was also the first-ever college graduation at MacDougall-Walker CI, the largest prison in the Northeast.  Then in 2024, we celebrated our first BA degree graduates in a ceremony that marked the first BA graduation in a Connecticut prison. 

In 2022, YPEI expanded to a federal women's prison, where it is now offering the only college degree program available to any incarcerated women in any federal prison in the U.S.

YPEI has been busy: expanding to new sites, adding new cohorts in three prisons, providing both incarcerated and returning students with laptop access and expanded student support programming and extracurriculars, bolstering our reentry support, and expanding our Fellowship program for formerly incarcerated alumni. Students and alumni describe this work as their lifeline.

YPEI is raising funds to ensure this programming can continue to be that lifeline — now and for years to come.

A generous family has offered to match up to $50,000 in gifts to YPEI between now and June 30, 2025.

Your contribution will help meet this challenge and  bring transformative higher education to students behind bars, directly supports formerly incarcerated alumni success in reentry, and helps reimagine the institutions around us — the university, the prison, and beyond. Help YPEI reach its goal this spring and join us in investing in a better, more just future for all.

(Above) MSNBC featured our work in a seven-minute segment with Katie Phang.