The significant benefits of postsecondary education for the criminal legal system, public safety, and for people who are incarcerated—as well as their families and communities—have been thoroughly demonstrated in a large and growing body of research. This study is a final evaluation report of the College-in-Prison Reentry Initiative (CIP), a program to expand access to college education in prison throughout New York State.

CIP was funded by the Criminal Justice Investment Initiative (CJII), a partnership between CUNY ISLG and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. This study improves on and updates existing literature by:

• Measuring recidivism in a way that has implications for public safety;
• Focuses exclusively on one type of education in prison—namely academic college education designed to lead to a credential (associate’s or bachelor’s degrees); and
• Examines the impacts of education on several outcomes that are rarely studied, including in-facility behavior and post-release income.

This study examined the effect of any participation in CIP on in-facility behavior, recidivism, employment, and income. Researchers used several proxies to measure these outcomes. The researchers measured in-facility behavior using counts of in-facility disciplinary incidents (called “misconducts”), recidivism using reconviction for any new offense, employment using formal employment, and measured income as wages from formal employment.

Researchers used propensity score matching—a statistical approach that creates a matched comparison group that looks similar to the treatment group in important ways—combined with regression analysis to try to isolate the causal effect of this opportunity to participate in college education.

See CUNY ISLG’s blog for an overview of the findings, as well as what work lies ahead.

Download the report.

See CUNY ISLG’s process evaluation here. For reports exploring the Goals & Achievements and Lessons Learned for Expansion of CIP, see the Smart Investment for New York series.

This version of the report was updated in October 2025.