Man who received college degree while incarcerated accepted into law school

By Davi Merchan & Dhanika Pineda

Benard McKinley is going to one of the most prestigious law schools in the United States, just four months after he became a free man.

At 16, McKinley was arrested for a gang-related murder, and at 19 years old was sentenced to 100 years in prison. As he was being taken to a maximum security prison to serve his sentence, he made himself a promise.

"I promised myself before I got out of that bus that no matter what the outcome was that, you know, I was just going to try to do better for myself," McKinley, who said he takes full responsibility for the mistakes he made at 16, told ABC News. "I knew that I wanted to better myself, and I did that."

McKinley will join the Northwestern Law School class of 2027 when he starts law school this fall at 39 years old.

Courtesy Benard McKinley

Benard McKinley becomes the first graduate of the Northwestern's Prison Education Program to be accepted into any law school.

After seeing the financial stress that legal fees were placing on his family, McKinley decided to learn the law and represented himself pro se after obtaining his General Educational Development diploma, or GED, while incarcerated. He also helped those who lacked access or resources to legal aid.

"I was giving back and contributing to those who was in need of help -- you know, in spite of them being incarcerated with me, they were still human beings," McKinley said.

While representing himself in court, McKinley's sentence was reduced from 100 years to 25, a sentence he served in full. While still incarcerated, he took the LSAT, or Law School Admission Test, and applied to law school.

In December 2023, he was released from prison.

McKinley is the first graduate of Northwestern's Prison Education Program (PEP) to be accepted into any law school.

PEP, which launched in the fall of 2018, is the only program in the United States that confers bachelor's degrees to incarcerated people from a top 10 university, program director Jennifer Lackey told ABC News.

Courtesy Benard McKinley

Benard McKinley will be part of the Northwestern Law School class of 2027 when he starts his degree this Fall.

"I did some work with incarcerated people much earlier on in my life and, you know, became an educator and knew that providing post-secondary educational opportunities to people who were incarcerated would be a very significant way of positively intervening in the criminal legal system," Lackey said.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the U.S. prison population was around 1.2 million at the end of 2022. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services states that while more than 600,000 people are released from prison in the U.S. each year, recidivism is common, and 2 out of 3 people are rearrested within three years of their release. More than 50% are incarcerated again, according to the HHS.

A 2014 Rand study, however, found that inmates who participate in correctional education programs like PEP had a 43% lower chance of recidivating than those who did not.

In January 2022, Northwestern admitted the PEP inaugural class, enrolling approximately 100 students across two prisons in Lincoln, Illinois. The first graduating class of PEP students, which included McKinley, received their diplomas last November.

"Bernard just worked tirelessly. He was relentlessly focused and he just sort of tuned out all of the distractions with that single goal in mind of coming home and going to law school," Lackey said. "And here he is."

ABC News' Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.