Raised on the plains of North Carolina by parents who grew up in the segregated South, I wasn’t put on the “Harvard track” early. I got there anyway—thanks to one of the best-kept secrets in higher education.

College degree programs like the Bard Prison Initiative give jailed students a chance to thrive once they’re released—and drive down the costs of incarceration for us all.

I hated school—until I got slapped with a 15-year prison sentence and discovered calculus, Mandarin and the college degree I never knew I wanted.

At Fugees Academy, students who arrived in the U.S. as refugees—sometimes without parents or English skills—are graduating at a rate of 90 percent.

Before they became places to warehouse so-called problem kids, alternative learning centers were designed to help at-risk students succeed. Some are rediscovering that mission.