Research shows that the number of incarcerated people who re-offend or violate their parole after release goes down when they participate in educational opportunities. A 2019 RAND Corp. study estimated that every dollar spent on higher education in prison could save the state five dollars by reducing the number of former inmates who return.

CSUDH is playing a key role in this process with the newly launched Master of Arts in Humanities program. The program, abbreviated as HUX, was developed in partnership with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. It’s the first fully accredited graduate degree exclusively for incarcerated individuals in California.

The first HUX cohort started in September, with 33 students across multiple facilities. They committed to two years of coursework, focusing on subjects within the field of humanities that reflect their own interests and goals. Coursework can be completed via a combination of email, letters, phone conversations, and independent study.

CSUDH originally established HUX as a series of correspondence classes in the 1970s, and hundreds of students earned their degrees before the program ended in 2016. When HUX Program Director Matthew Luckett began working with the state to reboot it four years later, the timing was right: Congress passed legislation later that year making incarcerated people eligible for federal Pell Grant funding for the first time since 1994.

That’s provided a boost to prison education programs around the country, and Luckett says the investment should pay off, especially for an institution dedicated to social justice like CSUDH. “Few programs, academic or otherwise, have as high of a return on investment as prison education programs,” he says. “Our students don’t just stay out of jail—they become leaders in
their communities.”

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