Divya Ramesh | When reality bites

Imagine going home for winter break only to find that the family you grew up with is no longer yours. Imagine if the perks of turning 18 — adulthood and voting rights — included being kicked out of your guardians’ home and onto the street. Imagine then having to sacrifice your education in exchange for food, shelter and support.

Some people who grow up under the foster care system don’t have to imagine.

The system ousts its dependents once they turn 18. Every year, thousands of young people “age out” of foster care with nowhere to go. In 2010, 961 teenagers became youth-in-transition upon their 18th birthday in Pennsylvania alone.

While about half of these youth nationwide obtain a high school diploma or GED, less than 10 percent receive a Bachelor’s degree. Many become homeless, poor or get pregnant.

It’s obvious that these teenagers need support and guidance beyond their 18th birthday.

Surveys show that about 70 percent of teenagers in foster care aspire to attend college or further their education. But a college degree fades from reality when they are faced with a lack of food and shelter.

Colleges like Penn should actively encourage children in foster care to apply. In doing so, they would provide these youth with far more than just an education.

Most children in foster care have moved multiple times between multiple facilities. They’ve switched between families and adoptive parents. As a result, they’ve often had to delay their education and have gaps in their transcripts.

College would create consistency, stability and security.

Not only would it grant young people an education but it would also help them navigate adulthood, give them a surrogate family, a support system and a home to poise them for success.

Some universities designate scholarships to encourage foster children to attend college — Penn is not one of them.

Western Michigan University, for example, offers the John Seita Scholarship, which provides foster children with full tuition and a support network. This fall, 44 Seita Scholars matriculated. California public universities also offer discounted tuition, yearlong housing, textbooks and faculty mentors to its Guardian Scholars who have aged out of foster care.

While they are praiseworthy, these special programs only cater to a minority of students. In order to reach more youth-in-transition, they must be paired with statewide reforms like the Fostering Connections Act. This act extends the foster care cutoff beyond 18 and has already been accepted in 13 states and Washington, D.C.

Penn prides itself for being the “the civic Ivy” and strives to improve access to education. Next year, the University will enroll 12-15 graduates from the Knowledge is Power Program, which offers a charter school education to high-performing students from disadvantaged backgrounds. KIPP is in many ways similar to the Posse program, which Penn has partnered with since 2009. Posse’s success lies in the fact that groups of low-income students from the same area are admitted to schools like Penn as a cohort, which creates a close-knit community.

We need to create a similar program for foster youth.

Foster youth may not have many blood relations, but they are children of our community. We need to see ourselves as brothers, sisters, parents and guardians who have a responsibility to these youth as they transition into adulthood. If universities like Penn work with the government, we have the power to turn 18 into a new beginning.

Through programs like Posse and KIPP, Penn has been the vanguard of change. It’s time the University actively recruited foster children to campus. Perhaps in a few years, if Penn decides to help Foster Youth Reach Educational Dreams, we can add FYRED to the catalog of Quaker acronyms.

Divya Ramesh is a College freshman from Princeton Junction, N.J. Her email address is divyaramesh20@gmail.com. “Through My Eyes” appears every other Wednesday. Follow her @DivyaRamesh11

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