For Shani Shay, stepping inside a classroom is personal.

"We're in the UC Berkeley cross-enrollment classroom," Shay, the founder and director of Incarceration to College, told CBS News Bay Area. "The UC Berkeley ethnic studies cross-enrollment class, where the UC Berkeley professor comes in and holds classes for the high school units as well as the community college students."

As the head of Incarceration to College, she helps oversee about 500 incarcerated youth across Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco Counties.

"I am formerly incarcerated. I am a six-time felon, as some people will call me. I experienced domestic violence throughout my life. I started committing crimes when I was 17 years old," she said.

But she added that she found her light when a mentor suggested college. A

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