Pat Little taught a course in business to a roomful of convicted felons, but what they learned was a different view of the world -- a view that allowed them to imagine a place for themselves. PNS Associate Editor Joe Loya recently had lunch with his former professor -- far from the campus -- and explains why cutbacks in prison-based education programs can rob inmates of far more than a college degree.

The other day, I had lunch with a professor from my college days. He taught on the East Coast before relocating to the Claremont Colleges in Southern California and we now live only 25 freeway miles apart -- practically neighbors by L.A. standards.

We ate sandwiches, joked and reminisced. But ours wasn't a typical reunion by any measure. You see, Pat Little was my professor in a prison classroom.

For two years, Professor Little taught subjects like "Marketing" and "Entrepreneurial Management" to a roomful of bank robbers, purse snatchers, murderers and drug addicts. When he finished a lecture, he packed his notes and chalk into his briefcase and left the prison. We convicts stayed confined, left to dream of rejoining a society where we could implement our new knowledge of business strategies and operation systems.

This was before Congress voted to stop offering Pell Grants to inmates who were trying to get a college education. The decision, about three years ago, triggered a mass exodus from higher education in prison.

Some states like New York went further, applying a Gumpian logic by mandating that prisoners could only be educated up to the ninth grade level. Stupid is as stupid does. If we were dumb enough to commit a crime, then dumb they'd have us remain.

Boston University, where Professor Little taught, saw the problem differently. After 25 years in Massachusetts prisons, they had learned that inmates who earned a degree had lower than average recidivism rates.

The public may have been fed up with the idea of criminals getting a freer or better education than the studious children of presumably law-abiding parents. But neither Boston University nor Pat Little tried to respond to that, nor did they ever buy into the argument that educating prisoners was going to help paroled inmates commit smarter crimes.

Pat tells a funny story about the first day he went into the prison to teach a business class. He asked the students what they thought of the generic term "business." After several answers, it was clear that the roomful of convicted criminals had the impression that "business" was a lot like what they saw on the TV program "Dallas." J.R. makes a lot of cynical deals and has sex a lot more. My humble professor clarified things. He told the class that he'd been involved in "business" for many years, and nobody would ever confuse him for a prolific Lothario.

Professor Little understood, more than most people, that something in the criminal mind unsuits it to the overt life. We members of the criminal class tend to see ourselves as marginal. Playing a clandestine role. Impostors. Spies. Or traitors. Anything but proper citizens, welcome at the bright table of limpid society. So our underworld activities display a love for shadows, the covert.

While eating a tuna on rye, I confess to Pat that "freedom" is a peculiar notion to me. I sometimes feel a stranger to this world -- as if I'm some sort of undocumented immigrant fearful of the Proposition 187 police. As if at any minute, someone may discover that I do not conform to society's standard of thought.

One way to fight this is by meeting with the professor who taught me to believe that there are still people out there ready to include me in society.

Professor Little's real motive for going into prisons was to give us a larger view of the world. If we inmates seated at our desks could be shown the world differently, he reasoned, then the possibility remained that we could be internally transformed by imagining ourselves fitting more appropriately into that newly-revised world.

I admit to him that I visit young inmates in juvenile hall to teach them how to turn the solitude of their cell into a liberating writing experience. I challenge them to transform a criminal past into an educational possibility.

I used to believe that knowledge of the principles of high finance were secret and reserved for a clubby few. Professor Little demystified my notions of high finance. And, in the process of methodically deciphering mathematical equations on the chalkboard, he also cultivated in me a confidence that all complicated problems are within my province of understanding.

In the wake of many small academic victories, I can now, with self-assurance, turn my attention to solving some of the more perplexing aspects of my criminal behavior. My imagination has been altered. The world moved closer to me, and I to it.