USA (MNN) ― A college education is a nearly-impossible dream for most prison inmates. However, Crossroad Bible Institute is piloting a program offering college courses to incarcerated students from Iowa's Newton Correctional Facility.
This provides a traditional "classroom" experience with lectures, a midterm, and a final exam. The course work helps cultivate the spiritual lives of students, which has the most lasting impact upon their re-entry into society.
Last fall, CBI students took a course in biblical hermeneutics, and this spring students finished a course in systematic theology. Upon release, these and other courses are designed to prepare students for completing a degree at the college of their choice.
One challenge facing the program is the mobility of the prison population. As inmates are transferred out or released, it becomes much harder to track the students' progress. Ordinarily, similar student body fluidity could pose a problem for most traditional classes offered in prison. Crossroad Bible Institute's program works around that.
If a student is transferred to a new facility or released from prison, he can continue his studies through CBI's distance education program. His lessons will continue to be corrected by a volunteer instructor who will return each lesson along with a personal letter of encouragement.
The early stages of testing on this program are encouraging. The ministry hopes to see "satellite campuses" as a result of this outreach program.
