Imagine traveling to high school every day from a homeless shelter. Even worse, imagine your family lives in a tent or a car.
For over 180,000 children and youth in California, they don’t have to imagine it: they live it. That is the number of homeless public-school students in kindergarten through 12th grade in California, according to the California Department of Education. While this figure is staggering, education officials and advocates agree that it is an undercount.
At John Burton Advocates for Youth (JBAY), we believe that being homeless shouldn’t prevent a young person from achieving their dream of a college degree. That’s why we are expanding one of one our most successful projects to homeless youth: the FAFSA Challenge.
JBAY launched the FAFSA Challenge to increase college enrollment among foster youth. The FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is the all-important form required to receive state and federal financial aid. High school seniors who complete the FAFSA are twice as likely to enroll in college within 12 months as those who do not.
Thanks to JBAY’s efforts, the rate of FAFSA completion for high school seniors in foster care in California increased from 45% in 2017 to 65% in 2020, with a dip in 2021 due to the pandemic. Also in 2020, JBAY successfully advocated for Senate Bill 860, which ensures this important work continues by requiring the California Department of Education to help foster youth complete the FAFSA and report data about its completion.
At JBAY, we are looking forward to adapting the FAFSA Challenge for homeless youth and helping more homeless high school students reach their goal of college enrollment and completion.
JBAY has its work cut out for it, according to Education Director Debbie Raucher, who explains that expanding the project to homeless youth raises special challenges, “First, there are many more homeless youth than foster youth,” said Raucher. “Also, there are not the equivalent public data systems to identify homeless youth and reliably track the FAFSA completion.”
These challenges won’t stop JBAY, according to Amy Lemley, JBAY Executive Director. “We have to do more for youth experiencing homelessness, on every level. Being homeless as a young person is tragic, and it shouldn’t shape the course of their entire adult life.”