Incarceration to College program gives Bay Area youth a chance at higher education

By CBS Bay Area

For Shani Shay, stepping inside a classroom is personal.

“We’re in the UC Berkeley cross-enrollment classroom,” Shay, the founder and director of Incarceration to College, told CBS News Bay Area. “The UC Berkeley ethnic studies cross-enrollment class, where the UC Berkeley professor comes in and holds classes for the high school units as well as the community college students.” 

As the head of Incarceration to College, she helps oversee about 500 incarcerated youth across Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco Counties. 

“I am formerly incarcerated. I am a six-time felon, as some people will call me. I experienced domestic violence throughout my life. I started committing crimes when I was 17 years old,” she said.

But she added that she found her light when a mentor suggested college. At the age of 28, she had gotten into UC Berkeley. 

“I started going back to school out of fear of poverty, and fear of not having access to meaningful employment,” Shay said. 

And now, with a Bachelor’s degree from Cal and a Master’s degree from Harvard, Shay is helping incarcerated youth find their purpose in life. 

“We had a convening the other day, one youth said the truth is that the only way out of my environment was literally to become a basketball player or a rapper,” she said. “Education is their opportunity to reengage in the world that has pushed them out time and time again.”  

CBS News Bay Area spoke with one incarcerated youth, who wished to remain anonymous. 

“I’m currently on my way to getting a double AA,” he said. 

He’s been behind bars for nearly three years and has one more year left to serve. 

“That’s been my motivation, to leave here as a man instead of a child,” he said, adding that he is looking forward to receiving his diploma and a life outside of incarceration. 

“Something I could put on the wall and tell them I did. A lot of my family never finished college,” he said. “Has given courage to my mom to go to school. She’s currently enrolled in college as well.”

And for Shay, stories like his are what motivate her every day. 

“We want to see our youth excel, and we know that they belong at a campus like UC Berkeley,” Shay said. “We know that our youth are more than sports. There’s nothing wrong with that, we love that. But that’s the hope that we want. We want our youth to feel powerful, we want them to know that they’re powerful.”

ACOE runs the Post-Secondary Program, which partners with Incarceration to College and Laney College’s Restoring our Communities. 

“As students see each other succeed, it serves as motivation for others to pursue higher education too,” said Dr. Lucia Moritz, Executive Director of Court and Community Schools at the Alameda County Office of Education.

“When ACOE took over the post-secondary programming due to Senate Bill 823, there wasn’t really a ‘college-going culture,'” she added. “Now, students are motivating each other, serving as mentors to one another, and encouraging one another to pursue more than their high school diploma or GED.”