This blog post is the first of a two-part series written in recognition of Foster Care Awareness Month. Check out the second part here.
May is Foster Care Awareness Month, and we know that while supporting students in a post-COVID-19 pandemic world creates a different set of challenges, that’s even more true for supporting former foster care youth in college. America’s almost 400,000
plus foster care children all deserve equitable access and wraparound
supports to pursue and complete education and training beyond high school.
The national average of former foster care students who graduate college is strikingly low, with states like Texas and California ranging between 5-10 percent of students earning at least a two-year degree before their 23rd birthday. Despite these gloomy statistics,
some states and institutions are diligently finding ways to increase access and raise persistence rates for their former foster care students.
Untangling the Knots
Addressing college accessibility being a state level issue means what specific assistance states offer their students varies widely. 24 states, including Maryland
and New Mexico, offer last dollar tuition waivers to fill in financial aid gaps after other federal and state aid has been accounted for. 11 states, like Tennessee and Washington, have funded grant or scholarship programs for their students. The last
15 states, including Hawaii, Montana, and Delaware, as well as the District of Columbia, have limited state support to only providing students with the Chafee Educational Training Voucher (ETVs). The Voucher provides a maximum $5,000 annual award
that can cover tuition, room and board, and other academic expenses.
Several of these programs have limited capacity or hold space for specific subgroups. Illinois requires that four of its 48 Department of Children and Family Services Scholarship Program recipients are the children of veterans. In Florida, the state’s
tuition waiver program is “capped at 54 [full time equivalent] students or 1 percent of the institution’s total FTE enrollment, whichever is greater, at each institution.” So, at Florida State University in Tallahassee, the limit would be 332 students for the 2021-22 academic year.
Even with these supports, foster care students are still struggling to complete college. Much like the Pell Grant, ETVs have not kept up with the cost of higher education. We at the National College Attainment Network (NCAN) have been advocating for
doubling the Pell Grant, as its value toward a college education has fallen drastically, from covering 80 percent of the cost of a college education in the 1970s, to less than 30 percent
today. Doubling Pell and ETVs would have immense impact on the persistence rates for all students, but foster care students in particular
need additional financial support.
Leveling the Playing Field
Many states have taken note of the challenges their current systems have created for students and changed course or eliminated barriers to access. In 2021, Maryland’s program eliminated the requirement for students to meet the federal definition of homeless and unaccompanied, thereby allowing more students to qualify for this specific type of aid. The state also made it mandatory for public
institutions to give these students priority for housing. Virginia’s original tuition waiver program legislation limited students only to community colleges. However, in 2019, Virginia expanded its tuition waiver program to include enrollment at its 15 public four-year colleges and universities.
Institutions are also increasing their resources for supporting foster care students. The Blavin Scholars program housed at the University of Michigan provides students with 24/7 on call
support staff, one on one mentoring, and resources for year-round housing. Program scholars can also apply for a maximum $5,000 scholarship.
Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU), a private, historically Black university in Charlotte, NC, opened their Foster Village Network Center in 2014. The Center houses their Phasing Up to Possibilities program, which pairs incoming students with current social work graduate students for weekly support meetings to ensure persistence, among other supports. JCSU’s foster care initiative was started by
their previous president Ronald Carter, who is a foster parent to four boys.
Next Steps
Foster care students being a small subset of the college going population often means they go overlooked and under-resourced, when in reality, they need more support than the average student. How will your equity action plan and the relevant execution
accommodate foster care youth in college?
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