Postsecondary Education in Prison (PEP)

It has never been more important to effectively serve adult undergraduate learners. In Fall 2021, approximately 3.8 million undergraduate students ages 25 years and older enrolled in degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the United States, accounting for 25% of the overall undergraduate population and 31% of students in public two-year institutions specifically (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2022). With overall undergraduate enrollments declining since 2010, recruiting and retaining adult learners is critical to institutional sustainability and economic vitality in many states. By 2024, most states had taken up Lumina Foundation’s challenge to ensure that at least 60% of adults have a credential of value. Achieving that ambitious goal requires states and institutions to improve their understanding of what adult learners need to be successful. However, research on adult learners has not kept pace with policymakers’ and practitioners’ needs. In this chapter, we contribute to closing this knowledge gap by exploring two sorely understudied postsecondary contexts serving large numbers of adult learners: community college noncredit education and postsecondary education in prison (PEP). Both are of considerable interest in contemporary educational policy and practice making this exploration valuable and timely. We describe these two contexts, discuss what the evidence can tell us about students’ outcomes, and offer recommendations for policymakers and practitioners seeking to improve adult learners’ success.