was standing by the stove cooking dinner
when the phone rang my wife answered the
phone and I could tell from just a one
side of the conversation that our years
of preparation to become foster parents
was coming to reality when we got a call
that a six day old little girl needed to
be picked up and given a home over the
last six years I’ve had a wonderful
opportunity to get to know all of the
various facets of the foster care system
here in Los Angeles County but my
private and professional life come
together with one of those statistics
less than 4% of emancipating foster
youth in the United States ever receive
a college diploma less than 4% as a
college administrator and college
professor when I hear a statistic like
that I asked myself what we as higher
education administrators and professors
must do differently what can we do as a
society with that statistic now I often
meet students here in my role as
professor that are what we call first
gen students these are the
first-generation students and their
families to go to college one common
thread with all of those students is
that they have amazing family support
they have families that say yes you are
the first generation student in our
family to go to college but you will go
to college what do we do when there are
a whole host of children that because of
the situations in their life that were
completely out of their control we’re
never given that ticket in order to
redeem that future of a college
education
we all know that a college education is
that ticket to have higher pay to have a
better paying job to have a better
career to be a productive member of
society but when a child is taken out of
their home without any of their own
responsibilities that ticket sometimes
is taken from them Molly McGrath Tierney
yeah she was a social services
Director in Boston in 2014 delivered a
TEDx talk where she questioned the
entire foster care system now she has
some very global perspectives she has
some concerns about the
self-perpetuating nature of foster care
and she has some very important insights
to consider for policy makers and for
massive overhaul with the system but
until that massive overhaul happens
there are situations before us right now
that we must attend to and as those in
this room today who have had college as
part of your identity it is up to us to
think about how we can reach out to
those children and invite them to our
table recently I heard about a college
athlete or actually soon-to-be athlete
that as a sophomore in high school has
already signed a commitment letter for
something this could happen several
years away what can we do to take
children 13 14 15 years old and help
them with a nice pathway from high
school into college one of the problems
and one of the reasons why this
long-term planning doesn’t happen is
they’re just simply not enough homes for
foster children from 2005 to 2015
according to the chronicle of social
change the number of foster homes in
America declined by 52 percent think
about that statistic 52 percent decline
in foster homes
in the United States when social workers
are merely trying to find homes for
these children that long-term planning
to think how can we have them resource
and ready for college just simply
doesn’t happen so with the focus on
education we often think of the 3 yards
of Education reading writing arithmetic
I want each of us in this room today to
have our own little education our own
three hours of what we’re going to do
with the Mansa paiting foster youth and
college we need to respond to the
reality we need to resource these
children and we need to risk changing
everything we think about with higher
education and what our relationships as
a society responding we have here the
cap a symbol of college graduation
do foster children’s not want to go to
college that is not true
eighty-four percent eighty four percent
of foster children when asked say they
want to go to college someday that’s a
great percentage that’s a great
percentage of desire people who want to
come to college and want to be given
this ticket for a successful life the
problem is is only 50% of foster
children will graduate by the age of
eighteen they simply do not graduate
with their peers so when their peers are
18 with those college aspirations they
don’t have that opportunity well why has
the number of students graduating at a
time declined
thirty-four percent of foster children
will go to more than five different
schools while they’re in the system if
you are one of these thirty four percent
that has gone to five different schools
your ability to form those stable
relationships with guidance counselor’s
with teachers with other important
people in your community that make going
to college possible just don’t happen
and when you don’t have those voices
giving you that aspiration something has
got to give and that’s going to be
college ultimately of the foster youth
that eventually get a high school
diploma only 20% then go to college so
yes they have received now a high school
diploma sometimes post eighteen but they
never go to college only 20% of them do
of those 20% that eventually do that
means for all of the emancipating foster
youth only six percent will ever go to
college just to give you some numbers in
the United States there’s about 20,000
emancipating foster youth every year
here in LA County it’s about four
thousand so if only six percent of them
ever make their way to college you can
just start imagining the kind of
situations we’re going to have well all
told that means that of these children
that are leaving the system that have
been our children only four percent will
ever get a college degree
I say our children because we need to
take responsibility for this when a
child has been detained from their home
that means we as a society have said
that is an unsafe place to be and that
means all of us in society now need to
take the responsibility of helping that
child as you’ve noticed the cap is
diminished we have gone from a place
where 84% of them want to go to college
down to only four percent of them ever
being able to go to college how are we
going to respond to that reality
resourcing when it comes to going to
college it doesn’t begin at 18 think in
your own life what were the
conversations you had from childhood as
you grew up that may go into college
something that was on your radar
personally whenever I travel for
business I usually will buy a college
t-shirt of whatever locale I’m at so my
children have University of Oregon
University of Oklahoma Oklahoma State
Oxford Cambridge I could go on and on my
children from even the outfits they were
we’re playing around the house have
college on their radar as oosa Pacific
University’s their only choice but they
do have College on their radar so those
are little things we do in a family to
just start putting college on the radar
I remember when I was a child an older
gentleman in my church came up to me and
said someday I’m going to call you
doctor I think he may have meant medical
doctor so I’m a sorely disappointed an
aspirational vision in your mind of what
your life can look like what can we do
to resource these children to make those
aspirational realities well let me give
four items of things that we need to
resource these children number one we
need to make sure all of these children
meet college admission standards here in
California we have things called the A
to G standards that will mean that they
are California State or University of
California ready what can we do as a
society with service organizations
rotary Kiwanis local faith communities
higher ed institutions to come around
our local school districts to say we are
going to partner with you and help you
through this time during your say ninth
to twelfth grade years my own University
here in a district that historically has
seen our local community with lower
college headed children said we are
going to lean into that and our
university and partnership with
financial support from the local Rotary
Club put on something annually called
college headed and mighty proud our
champ program for local fourth graders
fourth graders getting that vision of
college in eighth grade we follow up in
partnership with other local
universities and colleges in the area
and have an eighth grade majors fair so
that children at eighth grade can start
getting a vision of the types of degrees
that are out there because many eighth
graders their whole thought of colleges
doctor lawyer or if I don’t want to go
to college I’ll be in law enforcement
they have a very narrow view of what
college is but we expand that to let
them see all the possibilities that are
out there number two we need to make
sure that college applications are
streamlined I mentioned earlier about
these commitment letters that have been
done with athletics maybe it’s time for
us to partner with the local Department
of Children Family Services and start
working with 14 15 16 year-olds has
hired institutions to lean in and say
who were children that really
desperately want to go to college and
they just need to be mentored through
those turbulent years of high school
help them through filling out financial
aid forms helping them with the
application process for all of you that
have done college admissions you know
that the stack of forms that families
intact families need to do can sometimes
be overwhelming now put that on the
shoulders of a teenager who may not have
the greatest family support with a
foster family or other organization to
try to navigate that system we must be
able to make that system more
streamlined third we need to provide
basic life skills and this is again one
where all of us can come together all of
us can come together and
resource these children life skills like
budgeting loans health care issues how
to as I mentioned just navigate the
banking system how they take out a
checking account how to get a car in a
driver’s license these very simple
skills that people just naturally come
by in families are not often readily
available to the foster child that is an
our foster care system in our local area
the fourth item is we have to do better
at providing a family environment for
these children I know many of you in
this room may not be able to be foster
parents yourselves but there are many
opportunities out there there are
organizations like Casa Court Appointed
Special Advocates that you can get
involved with there are programs like
dawn of Hope and United Friends of
children here in Los Angeles that are
partnering to try to help children
through those situations my own alma
mater where I did my graduate work UCLA
is creating a new concept called Bruin
Village where they are helping during
the summers to take foster children on
campus and get them college ready there
are so many things that we can do to
help partner with our local agencies to
make this happen because we want to put
faces on these caps responding
resourcing risking our view of higher
education maybe some of the problem as I
mentioned we’re often set up that we are
ready to receive those when they turn 18
we’re ready to receive those when they
have fulfilled certain standards were
ready to receive those that are filled
out certain applications and so on but
maybe it’s time for us to rethink the
whole education process so it becomes
more partnership risking rebuilding our
relationships in society so the
Department of Children Family Services
local education institutions higher
education law enforcement all of these
different institutions are coming
together for the good of these children
just think of the way we often will talk
about higher ed the best and brightest
more selective ivory tower we often use
language
says you’re not necessarily welcome here
if you don’t meet certain standards now
we definitely have to have standards for
admission but there are many foster
children out there that for no fault of
their own would have no problem
fulfilling those requirements if it
wasn’t for the life situation that
somebody else put them in and how can we
as a society how can we as individuals
say I’m going to lean into that and I’m
going to do something about it I’m going
to risk my view of family I’m going to
Rivet risk my view of my own free time
in personal time to say I’m going to
reach out and help this child go to
college four percent of emancipating
foster youth will ever finish a college
degree I could just leave it at that and
say well maybe college isn’t for
everybody but the children that aren’t
going to college are not finding other
productive avenues toward life
twenty-five percent of foster youth when
they leave the system without proper
family housing will eventually be
homeless twenty-five percent of foster
males will eventually be incarcerated
foster females to emancipate from the
system are six times more likely to
become pregnant than their non foster
peers during the college years
overall 65 percent of foster kids when
they leave the system leave so without
sufficient housing what does that mean
that means we as a society will take
care of them in other places it might be
in the jails it might be in homeless
shelters it might be in drug addiction
clinics we will take care of these
children but are we willing to risk
rethinking all of it six years ago my
wife and I got a phone call about a six
day old little girl and it probably
would have been easy to say this is my
personal life and here’s my professional
life but his statistic of less than four
percent that ever go to college makes it
something that the lines are now blurred
between my passion for foster care and
my passion for higher education be being
available for all of these children will
you join me on changing that statistic
thank you [Applause]