How Trump Made a Tiny Christian College the Nation’s Biggest Prison Educator His administration has funneled $30 million to Ashland University in Ohio. Critics say the school’s tablet-based program fails incarcerated students. Juan Bernabeu for The Marshall Project Six years ago, Ashland University, a small Christian college in the north-central region of Ohio known as the “Buckeye Bible Belt,” was in trouble. The school was $70 million in debt, was given a “junk” rating by the investors’ service Moody’s, and was later cited by state officials for transcript manipulation, records show. But under Donald Trump’s Department of Education, led by Betsy DeVos, Ashland’s fortunes have turned around. After being selected to participate in a federal financial aid initiative for incarcerated people, the university’s correctional education program was able to spread to more than 100 prisons and jails in 13 states, from Louisiana to Minnesota. Since 2017, it has enrolled nearly as many new students behind bars as make up its entire undergraduate student body, bringing in almost $30 million over that time period, according to school records as well as data provided by an Education Department spokesman.