It is the ninth best university in the country, a school that is likely at arm's length for much of the country, let alone for those serving time. But now for the first time, more than a dozen current inmates at a maximum security prison can call themselves alumni from Northwestern University. They're all part of the first of its kind program, opening the doors to some of the country's most prestigious universities and giving incarcerated individuals the chance at an education and hopefully a second chance overall. Abc's Alex Perez has the story for us tonight.

There's pump, circumstance, and a lot of emotion. We now.

Invite the graduates to the stage to receive their diploma.

Robert Boyd. This historic group, ready to receive that all-important degree and begin a new stage in their lives. And I.

Welcome you to the Fellowship of Scholars.

Cheers and applause from friends and loved ones, speeches highlighting their accomplishments and hope for a brighter future.

I think I can very safely, safely say that I will never in my life address a class as decorated as this.

But this college graduation is unlike most. This auditorium is in a prison, and these students are maximum security inmates at Stateville Correctional Center outside Chicago.

Our students made history as the first incarcerated students in the United States to graduate from a top 10 university.

The result of Northwestern University's Prison Education Program. The inaugural class has 16 students, several serving life sentences with their loved ones in the audience.

So, Mother, this is my open apology to you and to my family. I told you everything you ever wanted for me was to be the best virgin of myself. So I asked you, mama, how did I do? A lengthy.

Sentence is not a deterrent.

To crime. I am the crime deterrent.

I don't feel no way start. I've been incarcerated 42 years, and to have a program like this gave me hope. There's something better than just sitting idly in a cell.

Oh, my goodness. It's so good to see you. Graduate James Soto convicted of murder. He maintains his innocence and recently learned he would be made eligible for parole after more than four decades at Statesville.

It's a place that will suck the hope out of you. It sucks away your very essence as human being. It dehumanizes you. And by having education, it gave me back my sense of humanity.

Research shows prison education programs make a difference, re-arrest, after-release are frequent. One Department of Justice study found that about 68% of inmates released from state prisons were re-arrested within three years. But a 2018 study in the Journal of Experimental Criminology found prisoners who enroll in post-secondary education programs are 48 % less likely to be re-incarcerated than prisoners who don't. The study also found getting an education while incarcerated increases the chances of getting a job after release by 12 %. But although college programs for inmates were once on the rise, there's been a decline in recent decades, making it something many inmates can't access.

If they're here for something that they actually did, it was usually when they were teenagers, early 20s. I mean, they are completely different people to decades later. I think that time and time again, we've seen that punitive approaches to crime, it doesn't work. I mean, incarceration doesn't work, but programs like ours do.

Professor Jennifer Lackey, director of the Northwestern Prison Education Program, works closely with each incarcerated student.

Okay, I said I wasn't going to cry. We will forever include you among our most cherished alumni as you continue to put your brilliance and your beauty in service of living with the outside beyond the walls.

Delivering the commencement address, renowned author and journalist, Tanahasi Coates.

When I got the invitation to come here and to address you, wild horses couldn't have stopped me.

What did it mean to you to see and hear and learn from this graduating class? Well, I.

Think what you said about learning from them is really, really important. I was deeply, deeply inspired. I teach kids who struggle to get to class in the morning, and to see these guys struggling with what they had to struggle with and still managed to get an education for a prestigious university. It's a big deal.

As I propel to enter society in a few months, this is one of the most memorable moments that I want to be proud to write in my story.

After 22 years behind bars, graduate Bernard McKinley was recently paroled and will soon rejoin society. Top of his list once released, helping to stop the cycle of incarceration.

When you send young black and brown bodies to prison, uneducated, and throw them back into society, uneducated, it does nothing but perpetuate the systemic racism as well as the prison recidivism rate that everyone loves to speak about.

Mckinley is also the first incarcerated candidate in Illinois to take the LSAT with his bachelor's degree now in hand, his next goal, law school. What is that piece of paper that you got today mean to you?

That piece of paper only solidified what I already knew about myself. That piece of paper told the rest of society and the world that I know what a pay-prover and this is my potential. So that piece of paper is only the beginning of what I plan to do.

Hi, everyone. George Stephanopoulos here. Thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel. If you'd like to get more videos, show highlights and watch live event coverage, click on the right over here to subscribe to our channel. And don't forget to download the ABC News app for breaking news alerts. Thanks for watching.