Charlie Rosario earned his BA behind bars in 2022. As he explained in a recent interview, he was part of the first Emerson Prison Initiative (EPI) college cohort, at the time located at MCI-Concord, which closed in 2024.
Rosario served 19 years in the system. As the Berkeley Beacon detailed last year, his was a story of healing and strong determination during his sentence for second-degree murder. At a hearing in 2022, he was granted parole and praised for his “extraordinary investment in his rehabilitation and adjustment.”
A year after his release in 2023, Rosario became the first EPI graduate to join Emerson’s staff as a program coordinator. He oversees the Reentry and College Outside Program (RECOUP) to assist other students and alumni with reintegration into their communities.
Starting in January, 15 men at Norfolk Prison—who previously earned BAs from any higher ed institution—will have the opportunity to garner a graduate certificate in communication and social practice from Emerson College. It’s unprecedented in the commonwealth, where 5,929 men are currently incarcerated in the Department of Correction.
Since 2017, 80 EPI students set out to earn BAs, and 20 have succeeded. Some began at MCI-Concord, and now all students are at MCI-Norfolk.
Referring to the new certificate that is about to get its wings, Rosario said he is proud to have helped organize the program, but also thought about the big launch from a prisoner’s perspective.
“I would have done it in a heartbeat,” he said.
Graduate studies at Norfolk
EPI, now at MCI-Norfolk, offers an Emerson College bachelor’s degree via in-person classes. The arrangement features the same courses taught on Emerson’s campus in downtown Boston. Classes are taught by Emerson faculty and guest professors from other local universities.
In an interview for this article, Mneesha Gellman, the EPI founder and director, said the BA program selects students through rigorous testing and interviews. Approximately 25% end up being accepted.
The graduate certificate program came about, Gellman said, because “people behind bars who had earned BAs asked repeatedly, When are you going to do something for us?” Graduates were clamoring for more education. Since he is free, Rosario is pursuing his master’s degree while working thanks to a tuition remission. But now, people who are still inside will have a unique graduate path available to them.
“First we built a peer tutor program at Norfolk where people with BAs can become academic tutors for current undergraduates,” Gellman explained. That provided “another learning opportunity,” in which student tutors tackle theory, practice, and methods of teaching.
The new Emerson initiative will not provide graduates with an additional academic credential. There are some perks though, with the Department of Correction (DOC) agreeing to give five days a month of earned good time—time off one’s sentence—for incarcerated BA-holders serving as peer tutors.
“We wanted a highly versatile degree to satisfy what the applicant pool would want,” Gellman added.
She said the graduate certificate in communication and social practice will build on Emerson’s strengths. “Social practice is trying to address the idea that grad work is both very theoretical and for applied fields.”
Gellman noted some career paths graduates might seek upon release: journalism; positions with the Massachusetts legislature; jobs in media or comms departments. She said a few participants hope to start their own organizations or aim for other entrepreneurial ventures when they get out, with some potentially becoming public speakers or advocates.
Versatile education behind bars
On Sept. 17, Emerson College announced EPI had applied for and won a three-year $500,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation which “supports communities through the power of the arts and humanities.”
Gellman said that if the certificate program is successful, the next step will be a two-year master’s program. For now, she will teach the first course starting in January. It covers research methods and writing, what she called a “key toolkit” to serve as the program’s foundation. There will be “heavy reading and the class will include all varieties of students, some with current education and some who completed BAs many years ago.” “It will be a supportive environment to bring people up to skill levels needed for graduate work.”
According to Gellman, the Mellon grant will also support “piloting and evaluating wellness programs for prison staff,” as well as programs for people returning home from prison. The concept of supporting corrections officers, Gellman said, “recognizes that the whole environment matters and that educational access matters for all.”
A brief history of college education behind bars
According to the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, “772 higher education in prison programs were successfully operating across 1,287 correctional facilities nationwide in the early 1990s.”
In Mass, arrangements like Boston University’s prison program launched in the 1970s at Norfolk and across other prisons, including at MCI-Framingham, a facility that houses females.
Nationally, approximately 27,000 students took college classes across the country in these golden years for education behind bars. Despite so much activity, the programs accounted for only 1% of federal Pell Grants at the time.
In 1994, the then-President Bill Clinton’s Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act ended Pell Grant eligibility for incarcerated students. As POTUS in 2020, Joe Biden, who voted for the bill as a senator, called the crime bill “a big mistake,” but the damage had been done. In Mass, the blowback was especially significant. Pell-funded higher ed in prison subsequently stalled for years.
A Rand Corporation Study in 2013 was one of the first to show how college education increased (by 13%) the ability of those exiting prison to gain employment. Most significantly, the research also showed how prison college education reduced recidivism by 43%. The study helped foster some restoration of Pell Grants under President Barack Obama.
The Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, founded in 2017 and dedicated to promote “high-quality and free higher education” access for all, tracks college-in-prison, and hosts a map which shows 608 such programs across the country.
In 2021, Bard College commissioned a study for its college-in-prison program, which started in 1999. That analysis showed similar results in terms of recidivism—approximately 38%. Researchers cautioned that their numbers may differ from those found by the Rand Corporation since the Bard program was particularly rigorous. Furthermore, the Bard study showed that “rates fell across racial groups, even as [the program] enrolled a student body broadly reflective of the prison population, which is disproportionately Black and Latinx.”
Building on those wins, Bard launched a two-year master’s degree in public humanities in 2025. This year, Drew University’s Theological School followed, offering a select group of prisoners the same master’s degree program in religion that it offers on its New Jersey campus.
On the other side of the country, California state prisons have a different model. That system’s master of arts in humanities cohort started in September 2023, and has since expanded across 11 prison sites. The program, which relies on Pell Grant funding, is unique in that it was developed in partnership with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Shedding more light on why grad work matters
“A BA is not what it used to be,” Rosario said in our conversation. “For individuals still inside, a grad degree will give hope and an opportunity to continue their education. It will help people aspire for greatness and it sets a great tone.”
Rosario also works part time some evenings as a peer-support specialist and events house manager for New Beginnings Reentry Services. The Dorchester resource founded by Stacey Borden provides services for recently incarcerated individuals and others impacted by the criminal legal system.
“I think it’s important to not put limits or ceilings on people’s learning potential,” he said. “At nighttime and weekends, I have to buckle down and do all my work.”
This reporter will take part in an EPI event on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026.
