 17,000 people are incarcerated in Washington State prisons and nearly 2,000 people were released in 2016 back into the community. Only 659 justice-involved people were employed. Highline would like to change this and increase employment rates. Reentry Education Transition Pathways program is designed to provide support and wrap around services to formerly incarcerated justice-involved students. Highline College supports high school diploma, GED, short-term professional technical certificates, transfer degrees and bachelor degrees. Highline College is nationally and internationally recognized as a premier community college, a reputation earned through the development of an institutional culture that values innovation, globalization of curriculum and community participation. At Highline, you can enroll in a variety of Associates of Arts transfer degrees and certificate programs. The AA degree is intended to prepare you to transfer to bachelor degree programs in a wide variety of fields such as business, interior design, e-commerce, computer science, database design, networking specialization, multimedia design, web design, personal fitness trainer and software development to name just a few. Highline also offers a wide range of certificate programs. Here are just a few, accounting, animation, small business entrepreneurship, CAD, drafting design, paralegal, visual communications and web developer certificates. James Jackson, a former Highline College student body president, had this to say about his experience as a justice-involved college student. Hi, my name is James Jackson. I'm a graduate of Highline College. I graduated with two degrees of AAS in personal fitness and an AA. I am also justice-involved. My experience with education before going to prison was rough. I dropped out in the ninth grade and I didn't look back until I got to prison and to really get a good, or I won't say a good, paying job, but to get a little more money in prison you have to program and getting a GED was part of that and so I got my GED. From there, my instructor was like, J.J., you got great scores, you should think about taking some of these college courses that we offer here at the prison. She stayed at me, convinced me to do it and I took a cultural anthropology and marketing 101. I really enjoyed it. That was an amazing thing and I got 4.0s and that's really where the seat of education was planted for me. The education experience for me has really changed my paradigm. I've went from convict to student is the way I like to say it. It's given me hope, it's given me belief in myself that I can achieve things that even when I was first released prison, I didn't think were possible for my life. It can be done, right, that education can be achieved. I wish I knew about all these services. I wish I knew about reentry programs and things like that. But I discovered all those things in the process of doing this, but I think what will help students coming out of incarceration is if we can get this information to them before they even hit the bricks and have them as prepared as possible to smoothly transition into the Highline College community and that is the goal of reentry education transition pathways is to really make that transition smooth for students coming out of incarceration into colleges. When I first came to Highline, I really intended on just getting my degree, my AAS and personal fitness. I'm 47 years old now, I was 44 when I got to Highline and so I felt like I was running out of time and I just wanted to get something going. But from my involvement at Highline and student leadership and everything, it really showed me that it's never too late for education and it really opened up my self potential. It really showed me that I could really do so much more and make a difference. I really believe in my ability to learn today. The biggest thing I got out of Highline is that confidence. Highline is recognized as a premier college and is the most culturally diverse campus in the state of Washington. Through our diverse educational programs starting from pre-college through bachelor's degrees, our reentry education transition pathway program will provide support to help you navigate your educational experience. Be a part of Highline College and change the employment rate of formerly justice-involved students by earning a certificate or degree.