Community colleges offer two-year degree programs in such areas as Business Administration. Shaw University offers four year degrees in Behavioral Sciences as well as two year degrees in Business Management. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has offered correspondence courses to inmates for over 25 years. Each year, several hundred inmates complete courses such as Introduction to Psychology, English, and other liberal arts courses through this respected state university. Education, in combination with work programs, can give inmates the skills they need to be successful when they return to their communities.
Education can also help inmates do a better job at their work assignment while in prison.
It can enable them to do a job that reduces prison costs, such as taking messages, running a library, or reading recipes to work in the kitchen. The cost of education is minute in comparison to its benefits.