RICHMOND, Va.
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| This Nov. 2008 photo shows Andrea Hatcher at the Southside Virginia Community College Daniel campus in Keysville, Va. Hatcher is part of The Virginia Community College System's Great Expectations program uses grants and donations to provide money for tuition, transportation and living expenses for kids in foster care. (AP Photo/Southside Virginia Community College) |
Community colleges in several states are working to establish stronger support systems for former foster-care children, who are more likely to wind up homeless or in jail than earn a degree as they struggle to overcome unstable lives.
Among them is Virginia, where the Community College System’s Great Expectations program uses grants and donations to provide money for tuition, transportation and living expenses. It also connects more than 120 students with mentors, career counselors and other help at seven of the state's two-year schools.
Many other states have started their own initiatives to help youths in foster care once they “age out” of the system and venture into adulthood. And it’s needed: More than a quarter of foster-care youth will be incarcerated and more than 20 percent will be homeless before age 25, according to a 2007 report by public-policy group Pew Charitable Trusts.
Only 20 percent of foster-care youth nationally will seek education beyond high school, and fewer than 3 percent are expected to graduate from college.
“I never thought I’d ever get my high school diploma, and never thought I’d start college at 17, too,” said Andrea Hatcher, who dropped out of high school and was shuffled among group homes and foster care in different cities after her mother lost custody of her when she was 14.
