California prisons have given 30,000 laptops to incarcerated students. Inmates say using technology prepares them to enter the workforce. As community colleges start replacing correspondence courses by mail with online-only classes, students and professors debate whether this type of learning is any more effective. In the past three years, the prison system spent $23.2 million to distribute 30,000 laptops to all incarcerated students. Almost half of those went to the 13,000 inmates enrolled in community college, who are increasingly doing their coursework online. The growth of online learning marks a shift away from correspondence courses, where inmates receive assignments in physical packets, fill them out, and mail them back to colleges, with limited feedback. While some community colleges still offer those types of courses, the laptops are starting to replace the packets.
