This story is part of a collection of stories in the "Nebraska behind bars" series produced by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications 2025 in-depth reporting class.
Rudy Valentino Johnson sat in a classroom at Southeast Community College’s Center for People campus in Lincoln on a Thursday in April. He was there to learn math and English.
He was also in the last month of his prison sentence, and was released on parole on May 16.
Johnson spent much of his adult life incarcerated. A program launched in March 2024 allowed him to leave the Community Corrections Center in Lincoln and take classes at Southeast.
After nearly two decades behind bars, Johnson finished his prison sentence, finally getting the education he craved inside the Nebraska prison system.
His journey to earn an education behind bars wasn’t easy. Over the years, the 45-year-old said he watched as prison staff confiscated his college materials, disbanded study groups — labeling them as “gang activity” — and expressed overall disapproval of incarcerated people getting an education.
“It’s going to be a battle,” Johnson said. “You just have to be ready for it.”
Johnson’s struggle illustrates flaws in Nebraska’s prison education system despite recent successes. Obtaining a post-secondary education while incarcerated is challenging, confusing and ever-changing.
Community colleges in the state’s urban cores — like Southeast’s ‘Unlocking Potential’ initiative and Metro Community College’s 180 Reentry program — offer a path for incarcerated people to work toward a college degree. But the opportunities are limited and often difficult to access, according to four education program staff members.
Prison education professors say outdated facilities, technology restrictions and institutional barriers hinder progress in classrooms otherwise filled with hopeful, motivated students.
“We’re going into facilities that are not designed for education,” said Southeast Correctional Education Dean Amy Doty.
High demand, limited space
Experts are working to improve college-level learning behind bars. Research shows education decreases the revolving door of recidivism and costs taxpayers less money in the long run.
As of March 1, 2025, around 7% of incarcerated Nebraskans were enrolled in post-secondary education — a shortage caused by limited space and a lack of programming leaving hundreds on wait lists, according to prison education providers.
With limits on class sizes — anywhere from 10-20 students — most incarcerated individuals take one class at a time to allow more people to participate, lengthening the time it takes to obtain a degree.
Doty said Southeast had a waitlist of around 200 people in January 2025. Metro Community College and the University of Nebraska at Omaha reported waitlists at the three prisons they serve.
UNO officials said the waitlist typically sits at 10-15 students per class, per semester.
Metro’s waitlists at Tecumseh State Correctional Institution and the Omaha Correctional Center total between 20-50 students, and its waitlist at the Nebraska Correctional Youth Facility is currently at 10-15 people, but is expected to grow as more individuals become aware of the opportunities.
Nebraska Department of Correctional Services Director Rob Jeffreys said a new adult prison in northeast Lincoln, scheduled to be operational in spring 2028, should help ease the system’s chronic overcrowding and will prioritize education. Plans include building seven classrooms totaling over 20,000 square feet, which is a significant increase in educational space than in older facilities like the Nebraska State Penitentiary, which opened in 1869, he said. Nebraska’s prison system operates at about 144 percent of its capacity.
Doty said she believes the new prison will significantly enhance student experiences.
Education can shut the revolving door
Jeffreys said education can reduce recidivism by as much as 43%, but with over 2,700 people leaving Nebraska prisons annually, many reenter society without the educational foundation that might help them stay out. Prison education improves employment opportunities, supports cognitive and social development and saves taxpayer’s money spent when people reoffend, according to higher-education experts.
Nebraska taxpayers paid roughly $363 million in fiscal year 2023-2024 in taxes that went to the Department of Correctional Services. It costs an average of $135 a day to incarcerate an adult. That figure does not include probation, courts, parole or other costs, Jeffreys said.
It costs around $10,000 a year nationally to provide higher-education to an incarcerated person. For each student who completes a college program while in prison, the nation saves over $13,000 in total avoided re-incarceration costs based on the reduced likelihood that that person will re-offend, according to a 2023 MacKinac Center study.
Jeffreys said most Nebraskans who enter prison have ”between a third- to sixth-grade education level.” While GED programs help increase that, post-secondary options were largely absent for the better part of 30 years prior to 2024, according to Doty.
The reinstatement of federal Pell Grants for incarcerated people in July 2023 allowed for programs like Southeast’s to exist again.
Trade programs existed in most Nebraska prisons during that gap, but Southeast Community College’s launch in 2024 with an associate of arts degree program for incarcerated people added an academic focus.
That focus aligns with Nebraska’s commitment to Reentry 2030, a national initiative aimed at helping people with criminal records successfully reintegrate into society. Nebraska became the fourth state in the nation to join the initiative when it signed on in February 2024.
Among Nebraska's goals is to boost higher education in prison, with plans to increase college coursework enrollment by 50% by 2030.
But getting there remains challenging.
'Being on another planet'
Johnson’s path is common among the incarcerated.
His criminal history began in 2005 with a second-degree forgery conviction. While serving that sentence, he received a 15-year manslaughter conviction related to a shooting incident that occurred while he was on pre-trial investigation for his first charge. His current sentence for robbery began in January 2018, and ended with parole on May 16, 2025.
But his fight for an education began long before he walked into prison. Moving from Chicago to Nebraska at age 10, when his father was transferred to Omaha Correctional Center, Johnson struggled to stay in middle school, jumping from McMillan to Bryan to Miller Park in all in North Omaha.
“It was like being on another planet for me,” he said. “Just going from there to going to school a lot of time and getting in trouble and getting kicked out and then put in special ed because of my behavior, it was like they never really tried to even figure out what was wrong.”
Johnson said he spent most of his elementary, junior and high school years in special education programs.
Johnson’s mother, a kindergarten teacher, helped keep him on track at home, he said. Much of his education, however, was thwarted with transfers between schools and moving from various programs. He said he missed learning foundational concepts.
“I want to learn, I want to know chemistry and I want to be in these classes in physics,” he said. “But how am I going to be in these classes when I don’t know the basic stuff?”
At Southeast, Johnson learned those fundamentals, and was most recently enrolled in pre-algebra.
Johnson considers himself lucky. When Southeast started programming at the Nebraska State Penitentiary, he was one of a small number who enrolled.
Johnson said he remembers the small rooms and limited class space at NSP, and said he knew of a couple others who weren’t able to get into the program because of space restrictions.
Limited space restricts enrollment numbers, affects access to specialized programs and influences class scheduling.
Education in a correctional facility requires constant navigation by prison education program instructors who already face more challenges than a typical professor.
“It’s like going through a TSA check at the airport every single time that you go in,” Doty, of Southeast, said. “There’s officers around, you know, it’s definitely not something that most people are used to doing.”
Johnson said he often faced resistance from prison staff toward educational programs.
“They didn’t like the fact that we were learning,” he said. “It’s like that whole concept: You don’t want the cattle to know they’re being sold for meat, you don’t want the cows to get smart.”
Nebraska Department of Correctional Services spokeswoman Dayne Urbanovsky declined to comment on Johnson’s claims that he faced resistance from prison staff.
“Our number one priority has been and must continue to be the care and rehabilitation of those incarcerated in our nine facilities,” she said.
‘A fools errand’
Christopher Zoukis, who was formerly incarcerated and is now a lawyer, is managing director of the Zoukis Consulting Group and author of the “Federal Prison Handbook.”
Zoukis said a disconnect exists between universities and prison systems and unmotivated staff is a problem that needs to be addressed across the nation.
He acknowledged that prison staff are often overwhelmed and overburdened and prisons are chronically understaffed, which leads to some of these problems.
“Trying to get them to even have the time to think when you’re managing a caseload of 200 people or more,” he said. “That’s just a fool’s errand.”
Zoukis said prison systems need to place a greater emphasis on incarcerated people earning college degrees.
“I think it helps open the door in terms of how prison education gives you a competitive advantage,” he said.
Johnson and Doty said they wish Nebraska’s prison system had space for more education.
Recruiting faculty to teach inside prisons can be challenging, Doty said, adding that Southeast hasn’t experienced a faculty shortage. Issues affecting recruitment include: commute times to prisons, security procedures, the time required to enter and exit facilities and the need to adapt teaching methods because of limited access to technology.
Evening class times — common in prison settings — can also deter potential instructors, who prefer to have their evenings free, she added.
Tammy Zimmer, administrative director for Southeast’s UPWARD program, agreed.
“That's a harder sell to people. ‘Hey, so you could teach this class online from your home and from your pajamas, or I can disrupt your entire evening, send you out to the state pen,'” she said.
The process of getting instructors approved to teach in correctional facilities involves multiple steps and coordination within Nebraska’s prison system, according to Doty and Zimmer.
Southeast has a dedicated team of 34 people, including staff members and tutors, some of whom are currently or formerly incarcerated, and faculty who work in the programs.
Doty said while they’re grateful for the space they’ve been given, the space is not ideal. Prisons are built with security, not education, in mind.
Despite the restrictions, Doty and Zimmer said Southeast has enough faculty to teach.
And Johnson can’t praise them enough.
“I don't remember everybody's name,” he said, “But it’s like, everybody I've interacted with made me feel comfortable.”
Fighting for education behind bars
Throughout his time in prison, Johnson said he advocated for more educational opportunities. He wrote to state senators and the higher-education officials at the University of Nebraska system, Metro Community College and Peru State College.
While initially promising, at times, Johnson said these letters never lead to much.
Zoukis said he remembers going to the college coordinator at the federal prison he served time at, and they laughed at him.
“I think the prison systems do a relatively good job at ensuring people don’t leave,” Zoukis said. “They also do a relatively good job, within reason, on providing kind of the most basic levels of education.”
Back in Nebraska, Johnson said math worksheets with payroll examples were labeled “gambling paraphernalia,” science materials about anatomy were deemed “too graphic” and prison staff would cite rules from other states' prisons to keep him from getting additional material.
While many incarcerated people played dominoes and cards in their free time, Johnson said he formed study groups that met daily in the absence of organized classes. Students used the approved vendor Edward Hamilton Books to order materials with their own money to study subjects like algebra, chemistry and English.
Even this was not without its hurdles.
Johnson said prison staff viewed the informal study sessions as “potential gang activity” due to rules against groups larger than five and would repeatedly break them up.
“It was really hell,” he said. “They would literally threaten us, just to try to better ourselves.”
To ease the frustration while incarcerated, Johnson kept his daughter at the forefront of his mind, fighting to become a father she can be proud of.
“If I’m gonna fight for anything, I’m gonna fight for her,” Johnson said.
New program, new opportunity
In 2023, a staff worker at the Nebraska State Penitentiary told Johnson about the program at Southeast. Johnson said he was immediately on board, excited for the opportunity to be surrounded by people who thought like him.
“You’re not in a box no more,” he said. “That was the coolest thing about learning that this was about to happen and to start being a part of it.”
Zimmer was among the instructors in the program. She has taught eight classes in prison.
“I was really motivated by the students and how engaged they are and how much they value learning,” said Zimmer, who now helps run the education programs as the administrative director.
Zimmer said teaching in prisons was the first time she really got what she wanted out of the profession.
“It’s what I’ve always kind of wanted teaching to feel like,’’ she said
Doty, who was incarcerated for 10 years, discussed her background with Johnson and others at NSP before the Southeast program began, Johnson recalled.
“It was like, if she was able to do that and be where she is and be a dean, I can do that,” he said.
Johnson said Southeast quickly felt like home, a feeling he didn’t know he could have in the prison system.
“That was the biggest thing that shocked me,” he said.
Still, after years of being told what he couldn’t do, it took some time for Johnson to trust people telling him what he could.
“People here at SCC really did care,” he said. “I was quiet when I first got here because I didn’t know if I could trust them, because I’ve been through so much stuff.”
He was comfortable, and for the first time behind bars, Johnson said he began to let his guard down.
“It’s amazing that I felt like that, at one point, everything was over and I wouldn’t have this at all, none of this,” he said.
Compared to the beginning of his sentence, Johnson said he experienced fewer disciplinary write-ups and found himself in less trouble once he started taking classes.
Johnson said he will continue taking classes at Southeast now that he’s on parole. He plans to complete his associates degree in applied science in business.
He said he remains committed to a promise he made to his mother during his incarceration: When he walks free, he'll return to society as an asset, not a liability.
“I want to make sure that I’m somebody everybody wants and needs to be here,” he said.
And he wants to become the father he never had for his daughters.
Getting his degree is just the start.
“I always wanted to have a father that came home with a business suit and glasses and had the briefcase, and my dad wasn't like that,” he said. “I want to be getting out of prison with a briefcase.”