Zuri Primos
The National Conference for Higher Education in Prison visited New Orleans on April 10 and April 11.
The 2025 conference theme was centered around the future of prison education and Pell Grant reinstatement, which allowed, for the first time in 30 years, incarcerated people in the United States to be eligible for need-based federal financial aid.
“When we chose ‘A New Era’ as a theme for this conference nearly a year ago, we were imagining a collective transmission. One shaped by the reinstatement of Pell, and promise structural reform,” said Ved Price, the Executive Director of the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison. “What we didn’t foresee was this particular new era. One marked not by consensus and stability, but by intensifying with certainty, contradiction, or adaptive leadership. Yet, in that irony lies a strange alignment. Our theme has never been more relevant,” he continued.
The conference, held at the Sheraton Hotel, hosted sessions surrounding these themes. The goals for this conference included navigating the complexities of Pell reinstatement, addressing the emerging integration of technology to enhance educational access within prisons, acknowledging the critical role of student voice in program design, and much more.
“What we really need to be doing at this moment is leaning into our ability to come together at a time of change and disruption, and kind of create a short condition of purpose for the work that we’re doing,” said Dr. Ulca Johsi Hansen, an author and educational thought leader.
This conference is a chance for the participants and the attendees to exchange stories and learn the importance of diverse narratives when doing work in social justice. These narratives can inspire others and make a difference in their lives, said Price, just like the stories he heard changed the trajectory of his own life.
“I consider stories infrastructure,” he said. “They shape culture, perception, behavior, possibility. So we just need to keep elevating them,” he continued.
In incarcerated environments, people are surrounded by systems that attempt to narrate them into smallness, criminality, or disposability, but higher education is a tool that can intervene, shared Price.
Brandon Lugo can testify to the impact of higher education on the narrative of his life. Lugo was imprisoned as a youth at 15 years old, and when the opportunity presented itself through the Middlesex College Center for Justice Impacted Students, although reluctant, he took it, and he said that it changed his life for the better.
“When you’re thinking about politics and jail, there’s a lot of stuff behind the scenes. Like, nobody would understand unless you’re in that situation, but to sum it up, I actually took a chance on myself by doing college,” said Lugo.
Now, although still in the midst of this journey, Lugo is using his voice and his story to advocate for and inspire others who are in the same situation as he was. Education, as Price put it, allows people to develop the internal architecture needed to expand the stories people can tell about themselves.
“It’s about self-exploration, liberation, the reclaiming of voice, agency, and future possibilities,” said Price.