Framing Effects and Group Differences in Public Opinion about Prison Pell Grants

ABSTRACT After years of gridlock on the issue, a bipartisan group of members of Congress struck a deal in 2020 to restore eligibility for inmates to access Pell Grants. Evidence indicates that college education programs in prison reduce recidivism and, consequently, state corrections expenditures, but legislators in prior decades feared that voters would resent government subsidy of college classes for criminals. To assess the contemporary politics of the issue, we analyze data from a framing experiment embedded in the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study. We find that Americans, on average, neither support nor oppose the proposal to restore inmates’ Pell Grant eligibility; however, exposure to arguments about the proposal’s benefits to inmates in particular and American society more broadly both increased subjects’ support. We further explore how this framing effect varies across political partisanship and racial resentment. We find that both frames elicited a positive response from subjects, especially among Democrats and subjects with low or moderate racial resentment.

Attainment Effects of Student Loans and Pell Grants

We estimate attainment effects of financial aid at a large community college. Using variation from a field experiment that altered how the college presented loans and a discontinuity in the Pell Grant formula, we separately identify the effects of grant aid and loans on short-run attainment. Although increases in Pell Grant aid cause students to reduce their borrowing, our experiment allows us to partial out the effect of any borrowing response on attainment. Both grants and loans significantly increase credits completed and grades.

Let's Keep It Civil: An Evaluation of Civil Disabilities, a Call for Reform, and Recommendations to Reduce Recidivism

102 Cornell Law Review 547 (2017)Imagine the following scenario: You have just been released from prison after serving a two-year sentence for sale of a controlled substance. Upon release, you search for housing in your community but learn that your conviction disqualifies you from public housing. You look for a job, but given the restrictions and required disclosures, your search constantly leads to dead ends. You decide to pursue a college education, but learn that you only qualify for a limited amount of federal aid and cannot receive Federal Pell Grants—loans that do not require repayment. Fed up with your situation, you turn to the ballot box but learn that you have lost your right to vote. Facing these bleak circumstances, you turn back to selling drugs and are re-arrested. This cycle is one that far too many in this country face each year.