As recently as 18 months ago, Jason Bell had no choice but to tell parolees in many California cities outside San Francisco that they couldn’t access a 50-year-old university program serving formerly incarcerated people aspiring to college degrees.
However, that has changed. San Francisco State University (SFSU) is now replicating Project Rebound — believed to be one of very few formal initiatives of its kind in this country —which has helped hundreds of formerly incarcerated individuals enroll in college and supported them until graduation. This semester, 117 Rebound students attend SFSU.
Furthermore, at least five Rebound students now attend each of seven other California State University institutions: Sacramento State, Fresno State, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Bakersfield, San Diego State, Cal State San Bernardino, and Cal Poly Pomona. All but Fresno State and Sacramento State are in Southern California, where Bell says nothing comparable to Rebound existed previously.
“This is great because we have gotten calls for quite a few years from not only individuals but from families, too,” says Bell, regional director of Project Rebound. “People are hungry for opportunity, and there seems no shortage of potential students. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Rebound enrollment at other campuses eventually matches that of San Francisco State.”
The late Dr. John Irwin, who earlier in life had served time for a robbery, established the original Rebound initiative at SFSU in 1967. As a parolee, Irwin finished college and became a longtime SFSU sociology professor and nationally known advocate for prison reform.
Rebound has helped facilitate special admissions to SFSU to men and women who are no longer in prison or jail and who hold at least a high school diploma or GED. Rebound has provided participants vouchers for meals and public transit along with a textbooks stipend.
Rebound’s full-time staff has generally consisted of alumni of the program and SFSU who have had firsthand experience in facing the challenges and anxieties of returning to brick-and-mortar classrooms, sometimes after an absence of many years. They have mentored participants, helped them adjust to college life and paired them with student interns for additional support. Sometimes the assistance is explaining the functions of different university offices. At other times, it’s showing participants how to submit term papers and class assignments by using email, a tool that’s usually inaccessible in prison.
