Jail to College: Why Willpower Isn’t the Missing Piece

The soulnotskin Podcast with Jen SluMac · Sep 7, 2026 · 1h 7m · transcript

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You can’t “willpower” your way through reentry when the barriers are baked into vision care, literacy, trauma, and the way institutions respond to a record. I’m joined by Denise Richardson and Mildred McKinney, the founders of OpenGate Inc., an Oakland nonprofit that helps people move from incarceration into education, employment, leadership, and a new sense of possibility. Their work started with college readiness classes inside Santa Rita Jail and grew into one of the most practical, humane models I’ve seen for helping returning citizens land on campus and stay there.

We…