Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Students without supports in applying for financial aid or paying for required materials, or those without access to social and academic supports, often face challenges in applying to and completing a college education. However, a college degree is an essential pathway for social mobility for students from under-resourced families. Youth aging out of foster care are often faced with these barriers to college access, as they cannot count on the financial supports that parents often continue to provide their children well into their early adult years. The Education and Training Voucher (ETV) program attempts to alleviate some of these barriers for youth aging out of foster care by providing current or former foster youth with up to $5,000 per year for postsecondary education or training. This study is the first multi-state analysis of ETV program vouchers, including who receives ETVs, how ETVs are used, and whether ETVs improve recipients’ educational outcomes.

Our analyses match child welfare administrative data from 10 states (California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee) that included information about foster care histories with ETV program data and National Student Clearinghouse data on college enrollment and attainment. Controlling for demographics and characteristics of child welfare involvement, we analyze differences in ETV receipt, as well as college enrollment, persistence and graduation for 77,393 youth who were in foster care in or after their sixteenth birthday.

Initial analyses utilizing data from four of the 10 states reveal that youth who receive ETVs enrolled in college earlier than youth who did not, and these youth often chose two year colleges to apply to and enroll in. Analyses also find substantial differences in the demographic characteristics and foster care histories between youth who receive ETVs and those who do not: for example, young women were more likely to receive ETVs than young men, and youth who aged out of foster care were more likely to receive ETVs than youth who reunified with their families. By combining data sources on demographic and placement characteristics of this high-need population with data on ETV usage and post-secondary educational attainment, our analyses strive to help state child welfare agencies, university administrators, and other key stakeholders understand whether and how this federal program improves college access and persistence among transition-age youth in foster care.