New Jersey Father Goes From Inmate To Ivy League, Earns Master’s Degree From Cornell University

Thomas T. Jones wasn’t your typical grad student—he served two terms in prison before graduating from Cornell University with his Master’s Degree from Cornell University on May 26.

“The most impossible places and circumstances prepared me for some of the most powerful doors,” Jones told ESSENCE in a statement via email.

Thirty-four members of Jones’ family, from as young as one year old to as old as 86, made the trek from several states including Alabama, California, New Jersey, Washington State and the District of Columbia to be there on Jones’ graduation day and see him walk across the stage to receive his Master’s of Industrial and Labor Relations.

So how did Jones go from prison to the Ivy League?

Taking a look back at Jones’ childhood, the Piscataway, NJ native recalled that he grew up living “in a constant state of anxiety and fear.” Losing peers to gun violence made Jones want to have the ability to protect himself, leading “to his first conviction of unlawful possession of a handgun at age 20,” along with a three-year sentence.

This wasn’t an atypical experience though, “A lot of my friends were either in the juvenile justice system or serving time, and I would meet back up with them in prison,” said Jones. “It was like a reunion. Growing up the way I did, I was already conditioned in my mind that I would one day do time.”

In 2012, Jones’ son was born and he says he was determined to make a better life for his child. However, going to a party one night would change his course—after what Jones believed was an illegal search by the police of his car, he was convicted for a second time of possession of an illegal weapon and slapped with a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence.

But this time would be different. Jones says it was like a switch flipped in his brain after a visit with his four-year-old son during his second prison stint in 2016.

“I’ll never forget this – he looked up at me and said, I want to go with you,” Jones told The Cornell Chronicle in an interview last year. “I had to explain to him that I’m in prison. This is where people go when they don’t follow the rules. As he was leaving, he kept looking back, kept saying those words, ‘I want to come with you.’ It just tore my heart to pieces, and I was like, this can’t be my reality. That was my defining moment.”

“I just really wanted to do better by my child and as a person overall…I told myself that I had five years to build myself back up, and I didn’t care if I didn’t sleep or eat. I had to make up for lost time,” he told the outlet.

Jones served three and a half years in prison and then went on to earn his associate’s degree in 2021 with assistance from the New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons initiative living in a halfway house. After being released, he earned his bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University in 2022 while working a full-time job and taking classes at night. Jones’ hard work paid off when he was accepted to Cornell University’s Master in Industrial and Labor Relations program in 2022.

“I wanted to help non-traditional workers overcome the challenges I faced as a frontline employee,” Jones said.

Jones hopes to cultivate more inclusiveness in the workplace through DEI work with the school’s graduate student association. Aside from making the workplace more hospitable to people of different backgrounds, he wants to increase employment and leadership opportunities for minorities and anyone facing barriers to employment.