Gemini Tippett, dressed in a black robe and mortar board, walked across the dining hall at the Deer Ridge Correctional Institution and shook hands with the Central Oregon Community College president. He grinned broadly and pointed as he walked back to his seat with a blue diploma holder bearing the school’s insignia while family, friends, teaching faculty and staff erupted in cheers and applause.

Tippett, who has been in prison since 2023 for multiple counts of invasion of personal privacy, was part of the first class to earn a college diploma from COCC this week while also serving time at Deer Ridge. Tippett earned his associate degree with highest honors — he’s one of seven current and formerly incarcerated students to participate in the inaugural graduation.

At the start of his educational journey while incarcerated, Tippett earned a high school equivalency diploma through COCC’s GED program. The 37-year-old then jumped at the opportunity to apply to the higher ed program when it became available.

When he was admitted to the associate degree program, he had to overcome the memory of his academic performance in middle and high school.

“I made my mom cry, I made teachers cry – probably kept them awake at night with the type of student that I was,” he said. But now, he’s enthusiastic about the value of his education and the doors he hopes it will open.

“In an environment like this, there’s nothing better to do,” he said. “Education is the path for any person incarcerated.”

Initially, the Central Oregon Community College Prison Education Program enrolled 18 students in its degree program at Deer Ridge Correctional Institution, a minimum-security state prison in Madras, when the program began in 2024. Upon completion, students earn an Associate of Arts Oregon Transfer degree and follow the same requirements as non-incarcerated students at the community college.

In Oregon, prison education programs are gaining traction and are part of a growing national movement to bring higher education programs behind bars. Those efforts have grown especially after the U.S. government lifted a 26-year ban in 2023 on using federal need-based financial aid called Pell Grants for incarcerated people.

Central Oregon Community College is one of four community colleges to offer an associate degree inside a correctional facility in Oregon. Portland State University offers a bachelor’s degree and Eastern Oregon University is set to begin offering a bachelor’s degree program at the Snake River Correctional Institution next year.

Higher education programs benefit those serving time, but they also have positive downstream effects for the student and their community.

People who participate in higher education programs are less likely to re-offend and return to prison. A study by the RAND Corporation, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization that conducts research to guide government policymakers, found that participation in any kind of education opportunity while behind bars reduces recidivism by 43%. Recidivism is reduced to 13.7% for people who earn an associate degree inside, according to the National Lawyers Guild.

“Community colleges are founded on education equity and access to education for all members of our community, and that includes people in our community who are incarcerated, even though we can’t see them, typically,” said Emma Chaput, professor and faculty lead of the college’s Prison Education Program.

Oregon’s recidivism rates for incarceration are 11% for parolees and people on probation, according to a report by the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission.

It’s too early to calculate recidivism rates for students going through the Deer Ridge program, according to Chaput. Plus, she added, the class size is so small that the rate wouldn’t be of any statistical relevance.

The program started with just three classes and $15,000. Now, 28 students are enrolled and 11 people have been released from Deer Ridge before completing their degree.

Chaput said she had lots of encouragement to start the program, but it wasn’t easy.

She navigates multiple bureaucracies from the Oregon Department of Corrections to the U.S. Department of Education while managing to teach a science lab without sinks. Students have many more barriers than their peers outside: they lack access to the open internet for research, and much of their work is handwritten.

It’s also a place where finding confidence and growing into a more fully realized person is hard, especially in a place that often reduces people to a number or last name, Matthew Kruzich, a recently released former student of the program, said.

When Brandon Rivera Castro was accepted to the associate degree program in Deer Ridge, it was his first time attending college. He said it didn’t feel real.

Rivera Castro, 27, was released from Deer Ridge before completing the COCC degree program but has since transferred to Portland Community College, where he’s studying microelectronics. He’s expecting to graduate in June 2027 and intends to transfer to a four-year university.

“l’ll keep getting my education until the wheels fall off,” he said.

He was just 15 years old when he entered the criminal justice system, he told OPB, and served a total of 12 years for armed robberies and assault. After he got out, he said the studies he started inside Deer Ridge were a life line that helped him land a job, put a down payment on a house and buy a car — just six months after his release.

“I get emotional thinking about it, I just don’t believe it. That one decision that I made,” Rivera Castro said, after he choked up thinking about the turn his life had taken. “I would not in a million years have thought that would lead to where I am today. But it was the best decision of my life.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/06/12/central-oregon-deer-ridge-college-incarcerated-students-graduate/