The Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) creates the opportunity for incarcerated men and women to earn an undergraduate degree while serving their sentences in the New York Prison System. The academic standards and workload are rigorous, based on a mix of attention to developmental skills and ambitious academic study. The rate of post-release employment among the program’s participants is high and recidivism is stunningly low.
As the largest program of its kind in the United States, BPI enrolls nearly 300 incarcerated men and women across a full spectrum of academic disciplines, and offers over 70 courses each semester. To date, there are over 430 Bard College alumni who have received degrees through BPI. In 2015, three inmates representing the BPI Debate Team defeated Harvard University, which had won three of the previous four national championships in debate.
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