Reimagine Access to Higher Education with BPI!

The Bard Prison Initiative defies expectations for who college is for and where it leads.

A fundraising campaign for Bard Prison Initiative

What happens when we reimagine access to higher education? What is possible when we provide college opportunity to people who have been persistently underrepresented in higher education? 


For twenty years, the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) has been answering these questions in the course of redefining the availability, affordability, and expectations typically associated with higher education in America. To date, BPI has awarded 550 Bard College degrees and enrolls 320 students across six New York State prisons, while also providing comprehensive reentry support to the 600 alumni who have returned home, mainly to NYC. BPI’s work reduces recidivism, creates sustainable career and academic pathways, and restores relationships between people in prison and their families and communities.


Brooklyn figures largely in BPI’s work and community, with alumni returning home to communities and neighborhoods throughout the borough to live, work, and study. BPI provides assistance with housing, employment, continuing education, and more. 


BPI’s footprint in Brooklyn deepened with the launch of the Bard Microcollege at Brooklyn Public Library in 2017. Bard Microcolleges take the BPI model beyond the prisons, bringing high-quality, tuition-free, liberal arts education to communities most often excluded from the university experience. Students ranging in age from 18 to 54  take advantage of Brooklyn Public Library’s collection and librarian staff expertise as they engage in Bard College coursework and complete associate degrees.


BPI’s teaching program, which prepares alumni for careers in education, is also rooted in Brooklyn. BPI alumni participate in professional development in teaching and tutoring and have gone on to work in and run high school equivalency programs at the Brownsville Community Justice Center and DREAMS YouthBuild in Crown Heights. As college tutors, they are a vital part of the microcollege academic community at the Brooklyn Public Library.


Defying expectations of who college is for and where it might lead, BPI cultivates talented, knowledgeable, and skilled leaders of and for communities most affected by racial injustice and mass incarceration. 


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