College is meant to be an experience where you learn who you are, expand your horizons, make lifelong friends, and discover new interests. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case for every student that goes to college. While many enter higher education with a solid support system, financial stability, and a sense of security, others face overwhelming obstacles that can derail their academic journey before it even begins. One of the most overlooked groups in this struggle is foster youth.
Let’s look at one specific example: the dorm drop-off day. It’s a day of joy. Parents helping students move in, last-minute shopping trips for dorm and school supplies, and a last meal with parents before not seeing them until the break. It’s typically a day marked by love and support.
For foster youth, this is far from the reality of what happens. Many foster youth and former foster youth show up to dorm move-in day with nothing more than a trash bag full of their belongings, still unsure how to pay for textbooks, bed sheets, or even food. This heartbreaking reality is all too familiar as group homes do not prepare or support transition-age youth for college. Outside of that, state support is few and far between. Some states do it better than others, but here in Georgia, there is a massive issue of matching youth with the available resources to which they are entitled. While resources are available to help Georgia’s foster youth access needed items for college life, they are few and far between. That, paired with the hoops placed around these resources, makes it so some students never actually gain access to them.
The impact that navigating these issues would have on a traditional student would be sure to throw both their grades and mental health into a downward spiral. That is even more true for foster youth, as many don’t have the benefit of a support system like a traditional student often does. The lack of a support system can often lead to the premature expiration of a foster youth’s college dreams. I have heard stories of youth dropping out of their dream schools due to such situations.
I was in a major car accident my freshman year, which resulted in me losing the use of my right eye. This was a huge setback for me because I had to learn to navigate life with only half of my vision. The lack of support in navigating academic and medical issues led to me feeling overwhelmed and drowning in the stress of it all. That led to me not being able to obtain all of the medical care needed to save my eye. Since all of this happened in the middle of my first semester of college, with little guidance and support from anyone, I failed all the classes I was enrolled in and had to take another three semesters off of college. When I was at my lowest and struggling to not only heal from a traumatic injury but also navigate how to maintain everything with school, caseworkers and the Department of Family and Children’s Services were all conveniently radio silent.
Stories like mine aren’t unique. Foster youth face systemic barriers that make college success an uphill battle. Many former foster youth have stories like this where the support they were led to believe they would have in their college career is nonexistent, putting their academic journey in jeopardy. Without proper support, many feel lost, discouraged, and unable to reach their full potential. Addressing this crisis means not only making resources more accessible but also ensuring that students know they are not alone. While many universities have some support built in for their students, this support isn’t enough to compensate for the lack of support from the state in charge of these youth. College should be a place of opportunity for all, not just for those fortunate enough to have a built-in safety net.
