Texas foster youth are struggling to obtain college degrees, according to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The dearth of foster kids heading to college exists despite government programs engineered to help them.
Foster youths are eligible for waived college tuition and education training vouchers as long as they enroll before their 25th birthday. However, eligible students simply aren’t taking advantage of the programs.
Last year, 3,200 students used the waivers to attend college. That was a decrease from the 3,700 students who used tuition waivers the year before. And that number was just a fraction of the estimated 11,000 youth who qualified for the waiver in 2014.
One solution: Legislators are seeking to direct school counselors to assist foster care students with filling out student aid applications.