A Kansas-based nonprofit thinks it has a solution for the low graduation rates of students from foster care: a college of their own.
This winter, KVC Health Systems, a child-welfare service provider with operations in five states, will open the nation’s first college for foster youth on the former campus of West Virginia University’s Institute of Technology.
The new nonprofit institution, which will award associate degrees, will enroll 50 students from West Virginia and surrounding states in its first year, with a goal of reaching 500 students in a decade. They’ll live in dorms, eat in a dining hall, and socialize in a student center.
Thomas Bailey, a lobbyist for KVC, says the program will “bridge the gap” for students transitioning out of foster care and into college. In addition to classes, students will get counseling and coaching on how to live independently. Most of their costs will be covered by federal and state funds.
How colleges can create a sense of family and stability for students who have rarely ever had it.
But some child advocates have their doubts about the plan. They say children who have been through foster care should be integrated into mainstream colleges, not isolated on their own campus. And they’re skeptical that foster youth, who tend to crave normalcy, would choose self-segregation.
“I think they would just want to blend in with kids who have had other experiences,” says John Moses, chief executive of Youth Services System, a transitional-living provider in West Virginia.
Advocates also question the wisdom of removing current and former foster youth from communities where they have networks of support. Steve Tuck, chief executive of the Children’s Home Society of West Virginia, says foster youth would be better served by their local community colleges.
Mr. Bailey counters that it’s “an expected social norm that we go away to college.” He says KVC has plans to integrate the students into the local community through events and jobs at the YMCA, which has signed on to lease WVU Tech’s former athletic center.
When KVC announced the plan last winter, it said it was seeking accreditation through the Higher Learning Commission. The nonprofit has since abandoned that plan, opting to send students to neighboring BridgeValley Community and Technical College for their coursework instead.
“We’re partnering now,” Mr. Bailey says. “Once we saw the relationship was right, we realized it would be much better to have instant accreditation.”
