Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

This paper will present the initial findings from an on-going three-year longitudinal study of college access and success for youth in foster care at the City University of New York (CUNY). The extant evidence suggests that graduation rates from institutions of higher education are alarmingly low for youth in or transitioning out of foster care. Furthermore, the literature suggests that child welfare systems have traditionally done a poor job of encouraging foster youth to pursue post-secondary education. Indeed, many foster youth are not provided with information or given the opportunity to explore options to apply to college.  To address the low rates of foster care youth entering and completing a two- or four-year degree program, the CUNY Start-ASAP Foster Care Initiative (FCI) was created. The initiative has two main objectives: one, to develop strategic partnerships with foster care agencies to ensure that youth in care interested in pursuing higher education are identified, referred and then guided into CUNY Start and/or ASAP (Accelerated Study in Associate Programs) as a supportive transition to post-secondary study; and two to ensure that youth who matriculate also graduate from the ASAP program. To do this, CUNY has developed and implemented strategies to provide individualized support from matriculation through graduation. This includes identifying needed resources that target issues specific to the foster care population, such as financial planning, housing, child care and mental health needs. This paper will present the initial findings that explore the efficacy of the strategic partnerships created between CUNY, New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) and foster care agencies, especially in terms of CUNY working with the foster care agencies to ensure students are made aware of and referred to the program and then supported throughout the CUNY application process. Based on an analysis of semi-structured interviews with CUNY Start and ASAP staff, ACS and foster care agency staff, campus advisors and FCI coordinators combined with an analysis of focus groups conducted with FCI students, this paper will argue that building and maintaining strategic partnerships between CUNY and the foster care agencies is an essential component to bringing foster care youth into higher education. However the initial results also show that once FCI students are enrolled into CUNY Start and/or ASAP, how to most effectively manage communication between the stakeholders concerning students’ progress is less clear. When thinking about whether such a model could be replicated at other universities, this paper will discuss the larger implications for supporting access to and success at higher education through the creation of effective strategic partnerships.