Cal State LA’s Prison Graduation Initiative is the first in-person bachelor's degree completion program for incarcerated students in California.
The program is offered at California State Prison, Los Angeles County, where students can earn a Bachelor of Arts in Communication. In partnership with Chaffey College, the California Institute for Women offers a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies. Incarcerated students will take three or four courses per semester toward a bachelor's degree and are scheduled to graduate in two years.
Cal State LA's Prison Graduation Initiative was launched in 2016 with support from The Opportunity Institute's Renewing Communities Initiative, President Barack Obama's Second Chance Pell federal pilot program, and later the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The Prison Graduation Initiative transforms the lives of students by offering them the opportunity to graduate with a bachelor’s degree from Cal State LA while they are incarcerated. The first of its kind in California, our program focuses upon graduating students with bachelor’s degrees using high impact practices and transformative pedagogies. Since 2016, thirty-seven students have received their Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies while incarcerated, twelve students have paroled and seamlessly completed their degrees on our main campus, and six paroled graduates of the program have completed master’s degrees at Cal State LA. In 2023, we have expanded our program to include women students with a new BA in Liberal Studies at The California Institute for Women (CIW). This new degree is particularly significant, as historically incarcerated women students have been overlooked in prison college programs. Our program at CIW, along with Fresno State’ at CCWF are the first
face-to-face degree programs for incarcerated women students in the state of California.
Cal State LA’s Prison Graduation Initiative is designed to graduate students in two years to ensure that the maximum number of students have the best chance of graduating while they are still in prison. Earning a bachelor’s degree while incarcerated, not only drastically increases our students’ chances of being released from prison, but also equips them to succeed in their lives after paroling from prison: to date, the recidivism rate for graduates of program is 0%. Currently our program is on track to graduate 75 more students by 2026. We are also expanding the scope of the program to include both BA and BS degrees, while also adding a third location, California Institute for Men (CIM), with an anticipated start date of fall 2026.