Supporting Higher Education Success: Part 2

Credit hours:

1.50

Course Summary

**This is part 2 of a 2 part series. Please complete "Supporting Higher Education Success Part 1" prior to this course.** Youth in foster care need supportive adults, mentors, and other higher education advocates to help them realize educational goals and pursuits. While many youth in/from foster care want to attend college. The rates of actual enrollment and completion don't match desire. 85 percent of foster youth aspire to attend college, but only 40 percent graduate from high school; only 20 percent actually enroll in higher education; and less than 4 percent graduate with a college degree. Moreover, research shows foster youth are more likely to graduate from a postsecondary program if they are better prepared academically, have independent living stability, AND are given tangible, hard/soft supports. This 2-part online course teaches current and prospective foster parents how to identify and overcome barriers to post-secondary education; how to encourage and support a young person’s pursuit of higher education; ways to help foster youth successfully navigate college admissions and financial aid processes; and finally, how to find and obtain resources to ensure college/academic success.

In this course, you can expect to learn:

Available supports to ensure foster youth go from matriculation (college admission) to graduation
Specific and general educational resources available to foster youth
How to help foster youth transition into life after foster care

Step 1

Watch this TEDx Talk by Robert Duke, Administrator at Azusa Pacific College to see how higher education can become a reality for more foster youth.

Step 2

Read the story of Elexus to better understand the potential struggles foster youth face while attending college, and how to overcome them.

Step 3

Read how Casey Family Programs’ “Fostering College Success Mentoring Program” a public-private collaboration is not only increasing higher education access for New York’s foster youth, but ensuring academic success as well.

Step 4

Watch the video at the top of this article to hear from young people about how programs like Great Expectations in Virginia (explore their page here) are helping foster youth attend and succeed in college.

Step 5

View a collection of higher education resources, state-by-state, on FosterClub.org.

Step 6

Check out some of the tuition waiver programs, the Education and Training Voucher (ETV) program, and the Guardian Scholars Foundation.

Step 7

Review FosterClub’s Transition Toolkit “Education” section. Foster parents use this invaluable tool to help foster youth develop a comprehensive transition plan with a team of supportive adults.