12 Missouri women get Washington U degrees. From prison. (2024)

VANDALIA, Mo. — In many ways, Deb Huber is like any other college graduate.

She completed all the necessary credit hours. She finished her homework, wrote essays, and studied, despite many distractions. And her future promises both uncertainty and possibility.

But Huber, 52, received her degree this week 10 days after being released from prison.

“It was like, ‘Welcome to the real world,’"Huber said.

Huber was one of 12 incarcerated women to earn an associate of arts degree through Washington University’s Prison Education Project, this school year. They’re the first women to receive degrees through the program, which graduated its first class in a men’s prison in 2019.

Education programs for prisoners aren’t new. Washington University’s project is one of 200 university-sponsored programs nationwide. It’s also one of a handful education options for Missouri prisoners. In 2008, St. Louis University started offering a certificate in theological studies at a prison in Bonne Terre. It later expanded to allow inmates to receive an associate of arts.

But the Prison Education Project is one of very few that operate like a typical classroom. Full-time students come to class at 8 a.m., break for lunch, and return for the afternoon. Professors give lectures, assign projects, and treat prisoners as they would students at the university’s Danforth campus in St. Louis.

“The goal is to replicate as much of a normal experience as we can but in a very different setting,” Prison Education Project Director Kevin Windhauser said.

An associate degree takes about two years. After that, they can pursue their bachelor’s — a rare option for prison education.

Graduates who get out of prison after they receive their degrees have gone on to start small businesses or work at the university, Windhauser said.

“It really does open doors that aren’t necessarily available to incarcerated people,” he said.

Going to college is hard, but it’s especially hard in prison, Windhauser said.

There’s no writing center or math lab, no Google or internet. There’s a library, but it’s not very academic.

Natasha White, who is serving time for drug-related charges, said five other women live in the same room in prison, with about 100 more in the wing.

“There’s a lot of drama,” she said. “So being able to really sit down and focus on anything is kind of hard.”

She’s getting out in August, and has a job already lined up as a library intern at Washington University’s St. Louis campus, she said.

“I can maybe help with research for my fellow classmates who are still incarcerated,” White said.

Students who graduated in the first women’s cohort come from widely different backgrounds. Some received a college degree before incarceration. Others never finished high school.

All were incarcerated for felonies: convicted for murder, rape or endangering the welfare of a child, among other charges.

Marna Weber, who’s serving a life sentence for murder, never made it past the eighth grade.

Before the start of her incarceration 24 years ago, Weber said she had problems with addiction. And after her mother committed suicide when she was 13, Weber said she lived life in the streets and got “hooked up with some crazy people.”

“But I always remembered I loved school and I always wanted to be in school,” Weber said. “That was something that stayed with me.”

Weber earned her GED a few years after her sentence started. Working toward her associate degree presented a special kind of satisfaction, she said — “I didn’t have to cheat, skate my way through it or do anything illegal. I did it honestly, (which) made it all the more rewarding.”

College, Weber said, “was my new addiction.”

On Thursday, 11 of the graduates received their degrees in a commencement ceremony. A four-piece brass band played “Trumpet Voluntary” by John Stanley. Friends and family members crowded into the visitor’s room of the state’s women’s prison in Vandalia, Missouri, to watch their loved ones, dressed in caps and gowns, get their diplomas.

Everyone was there except Huber.

Huber was already out. She had been released 10 days prior, after spending six years inside for felony DWI.

And she walked at Washington University’s main graduation. There, on Washington University’s St. Louis campus, the sound was “overwhelming,” she said.

Thousands at Francis Field chatted, cheered and clapped during the drizzly outdoor ceremony. In the back of the field, anti-war protesters chanted.

There were far more people there than Huber was used to being around. But it was wonderful, she said.

Huber lives in Kansas City with her parents now. She said she wants to find a house and make her way back into the education field, decades after earning her first degree.

Before prison, Huber worked as a real estate appraiser. And before that, for about one year, she taught first grade in Lee’s Summit.

She’d like to get back to helping children again. Maybe in a counseling setting, with children who have incarcerated parents or special needs.

“People really stepped in to help me these past six years,” Huber said. “I’d like to give back.”