Postsecondary Educational Trajectories of Formerly Incarcerated Persons - YEDI affiliated
Tolani Britton, Professor
Education
Open. Apprentices needed for the Fall semester. Enter your application online beginning August 22nd. The deadline to apply is Tuesday, September 2nd, 4pm.
Given the limited work opportunities available to persons who have been incarcerated, a college degree could serve as one means to improve both educational and job market outcomes. A number of states have expanded access to college classes for incarcerated persons. In 2014, California passed SB 1391, a law that allowed for equal per-student funding of college courses in prison and on campus. However, there is limited research on whether this access to college while in prison is associated with postsecondary persistence and completion of a certificate or degree. Using administrative data from the California community colleges during the 2012–2021 period, this project explores the likelihood of reenrollment in a community college, persistence, and completion of either a degree or certificate for formerly incarcerated persons in California who took community college courses while incarcerated when compared to community college students who were formerly incarcerated and did not have access to these courses. Findings have implications for policy on access to educational opportunities for formerly incarcerated persons.
If you are selected for this research project, you will also be invited to join the Youth Equity Discovery Initiative (YEDI) Program, a research mentorship program that aims to build supportive pathways into research careers, service, and leadership addressing adolescent wellbeing. The year-long program provides weekly skill-building workshops, cascading mentorship, and professional development training to a cohort of 20-30 undergraduate scholars working on faculty-led youth equity research projects (like this one). Past scholars have benefitted from YEDI’s mentorship and professional development opportunities (including faculty and graduate student speakers). The program culminates in an end-of-year research poster symposium.
The 2025-2026 YEDI cohort will meet in BOTH fall and spring. For the Fall, the workshops will take place on Tuesdays, 2:00pm-3:30pm starting September 30th. In order to take part in the YEDI program, you MUST be able to attend the workshops at this time. As a YEDI scholar, you will sign up for a PH198 class and receive 1 unit. This is in addition to the units you receive for your URAP research project. For any questions about YEDI, please contact YEDI’s Director Marieka Schotland (mschotland@berkeley.edu) or visit our website https://i4y.berkeley.edu/youth-equity-discovery-initiative-yedi-program. Participation in the YEDI Program is not required for this research project, but is strongly encouraged.
Role: Help create an annotated bibliography of existing studies on college for system impacted students.
Qualifications: Communication skills
Organizational skills
Microsft Excel
Stata
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: TBD, Graduate Student
Hours: 6-8 hrs
Off-Campus Research Site: remote
Social Sciences Education, Cognition & Psychology