ABSTRACT

College students in prison are ineligible for state-funded financial aid in most states. This is because state policymakers adopted policies that explicitly ban incarcerated students from receiving aid. How and why did state policymakers do this? This study explores this question through qualitative case studies of two states where incarcerated students lost financial aid eligibility: Georgia and Indiana. The history of these policy adoption events was traced from legislative records and interviews with policymakers. This study is among the first to apply a new conceptual model of state higher education policy adoption; thus, it offers new insights into the policy adoption process and the strengths of the model. Results show the factors that influenced the adoption of new financial aid eligibility policies were represented in the conceptual model, including state economics, funding for higher education, state agency influence, political ideology, gubernatorial strength, and electoral conditions.

摘要

在大多数州，监狱中的大学生没有资格获得国家资助的经济援助。这是因为州政策制定者采取了明确禁止被监禁学生接受援助的政策。国家政策制定者如何以及为何这样做？本研究通过对被监禁的学生失去经济援助资格的两个州的定性案例研究来探讨这个问题：乔治亚州和印第安纳州。这些政策采纳事件的历史可以从立法记录和与政策制定者的访谈中追溯。这项研究是最早应用国家高等教育政策采纳新概念模型的研究之一；因此，它为政策采纳过程和模型的优势提供了新的见解。结果表明，影响采用新的经济援助资格政策的因素在概念模型中得到体现，