It engage students in the full breadth of liberal arts culminating in associate and bachelor's degrees from Bard.
[1] The Bard Prison Initiative was founded by undergraduates at Bard College in 1999, after access to Pell Grants was eliminated for incarcerated people in the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, shutting down most prison education programs around the country.
[3][4] BPI is the subject of College Behind Bars, a 2019 documentary executive produced by Ken Burns and directed by Lynn Novick.
[6] It also won a gold Telly Award in 2020 for “Documentary: Series: Television.”[7] As of 2023, the docuseries has been screened at more than fifty higher education institutions and many jails and prisons in the United States.
[14] Since 2016 BPI has established full scholarship “Microcolleges” outside of prison where non-residential students earn Bard associate degrees in small campus spaces built inside partner community institutions.