Bold truth: freedom may start not at a prison gate but in the mind. The idea that time is merely something to endure behind bars is challenged here by a different path—one where education becomes the key to liberation, long before release. Time, for those inside, is not just minutes ticking away; it is a resource to be converted into knowledge, skills, and the power to shape a life afterward. This is the prison-to-school journey, where learning acts as a bridge to a future that even walls cannot erode.
When I was arrested in 2002 at 25, I was an entrepreneur in the middle of building something meaningful. I was pursuing a degree in Information Technology while running a business, but everything changed the moment I entered New Jersey State Prison (NJSP) in Trenton. Faced with a stark choice—give up on dreams or fight to prove my innocence while pursuing education—I chose the latter. Education became my anchor, a way to salvage purpose from a life-sentence reality.
My father immigrated our family from Pakistan to give us access to higher education. He passed away recently, and his dream continues to drive my pursuit of learning. Yet inside the system, the dream is tough to chase. The prison environment is designed to pull people toward vice and stagnation. Drugs and gambling are pervasive, while constructive pursuits like education often feel out of reach.
NJSP’s education offerings are limited to GED-level programs. There is also an outside option called independent study, including certifications such as paralegal studies that cost around $750 to $1,000. For-profit correspondence schools push degrees by mail, but many are unaccredited; some people collect bachelor’s, master’s, or even doctorates in a year, but that’s not a route I could trust. An accredited degree remains a mark of legitimacy and equality in the eyes of the outside world.
Beyond carpeted opportunities, real options for reputable, accredited college degrees can run into the thousands of dollars—an impossible barrier for most incarcerated individuals. So I started with a prison paralegal training program run by fellow inmates, which helped those around me fight legal battles from within.
Then came inspiration from a PBS documentary about the Bard Prison Initiative in New York—an actual, accredited college program inside the state’s prisons. Motivated, I wrote dozens of letters to universities across the country asking them to consider me as a test case for a degree; I received zero responses. I eventually learned about NJ-STEP, a program offering college courses to prisoners at East Jersey State Prison. When I inquired about enrollment, the NJSP education supervisor claimed the program wasn’t offered at our facility. An administrator later dismissed my appeal with a blunt line: “Why should I bring NJ-STEP here? You guys aren’t going anywhere.” Those words echoed, like a sentence within a sentence, underscoring a stubborn barrier to progress.
The myth that higher education isn’t feasible behind bars is persistent. Thomas Koskovich, 47, has spent nearly 30 years in NJSP with a life sentence. When I asked about higher education opportunities, he scoffed: “What college program? The only thing they let us do is independent study, and you pay for everything yourself. The prison doesn’t help; they only proctor tests.” He works as a teacher’s aide at the Donald Bourne School, a program supported by outside teachers while aides like him assist and tutor. He notes that there is no clear path forward to higher education beyond GEDs, and that many students stay in basic programs for years.
The reality is stark: classes are canceled due to emergencies, literacy gaps require years to bridge, and students sometimes view school as a kind of job because they are paid to attend—an arrangement that can make some choose to underperform to stay in school longer. Of roughly two dozen students, only five to ten graduate annually. Meanwhile, a dedicated staff member, Thomas, earns about $1,500 a year and is blocked by cost barriers from pursuing an accredited degree. His belief remains that most people inside aren’t inherently criminal; they’re simply in difficult circumstances, and given real opportunities, they’d choose legitimate, meaningful lives.
Education, for Thomas, is the pathway to self-betterment. A pivotal moment came when Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed crossed his path, illustrating how education can empower individuals to handle stress, unleash creativity, and develop marketable skills for lawful work. In his view, the Department of Corrections may physically contain people, but it cannot nurture minds. Nearly all who leave prison will re-enter society, and education plays a crucial role in that transition. Research supports this: the Prison Policy Initiative highlights how limited educational access remains a major barrier to rehabilitation and reentry, while a RAND meta-analysis shows a 43 percent lower chance of reoffending for those who pursue study behind bars.
Kashif Hassan, a 40-year-old from Brooklyn, embodies what higher education can achieve inside prison. He has earned multiple degrees, including two PhDs, through distance learning, driven by the desire to show his two sons that learning persists despite circumstances. He faced a lack of support from NJSP’s education department, including the removal of the college correspondence roster that allowed access to the prison library and computer resources. Still, he believes education helps him understand his rights, navigate the system, and articulate his thoughts—an empowerment many in confinement crave.
A glimmer of progress arrived in 2023 when Thomas Edison State University (TESU) launched an accredited degree program for NJSP inmates. In 2024, I began TESU courses toward a liberal arts degree, funded by grants and scholarships. This program operates independently from the NJSP education department, which only proctors exams. For those long denied access to higher education, TESU feels like a door that finally opens where there had been a wall. It has given me a sense of freedom and purpose.
For Michael Doce, 44, another TESU student serving a 30-year sentence, the door remains narrow but invaluable. He studied engineering at Rutgers before imprisonment and now pursues a degree in communications. He shares that family members send used textbooks, which take weeks to arrive due to security checks, while the prison has recently banned the use of used books. He remains determined, aiming to become a journalist, because a criminal conviction can close many doors, yet education can open new ones.
The path to progress is not smooth. A line from Urdu poet Mir Taqi Mir captures the daily struggle: the pull between the world and the divine, between despair and determination. Each prisoner faces a personal test of whether to yield to despair or to grow through study. For many, education stands as a beacon of hope—an intentional choice to stay human and pursue growth even when freedom from confinement seems distant.
Ultimately, the Department of Corrections can store bodies, but it cannot imprison the will to grow. Education is not charity inside prisons; it is resistance and self-preservation. It is the one space where a person can still choose and, by choosing, stay truly alive and free. Freedom, then, does not begin with release. It begins with growth of the mind.
In time, every page turned and every lesson learned behind bars becomes a quiet assertion: time can belong to us, even within these walls. This piece concludes a three-part series on how prisoners challenge the US justice system through law, entrepreneurship, and education. Read more from the series to learn how inmates are reshaping their destinies from inside: How I’m fighting the US prison system from the inside; Tailors and corner stores: The hustles helping prisoners survive.
Tariq Maqbool is a prisoner at NJSP since 2005 and contributes to Al Jazeera English on topics including solitary confinement and the Muslim prisoner experience. The accompanying illustrations were created by Martin Robles, using limited art supplies and creative techniques to blend colors.
