Community college

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) vetoed the most consequential legislation to college financial aid reform in a generation.

A new report on educational achievement for foster youth found that to help them succeed in college, targeted supports need to start years before they walk on campus.  The report, Pipeline to Success, focused specifically on the 21,186 foster youth in California’s 115 community colleges and the supports they needed to transition from high school to a successful post-secondary education. 

Since 2015, California has offered $15 million in community college assistance — including tutoring, transportation and housing support — to kids in foster care who are age 16 to 26. Senate Bill 12, one of the 859 bills signed into law this session by California Gov.

Sometimes I feel like the “Tortoise and the Hare” fable is the story of my college career. I entered foster care at the age of 2 when my parents became incarcerated.

In 1995, when Frankie Guzman was 15, living in the impoverished community of La Colonia in the city of Oxnard, California, his older friend came to his house to ask for a favor.

A new report from the California College Pathways hopes to use data to better illustrate some of the barriers in higher education faced by foster youth. The goal of this analysis is to spur policies, programs and practices that would help more youth achieve success in college.

Every week, I work with my team at The John Burton Foundation to identify what we think are important developments in the field of child welfare and foster care. This week, two that caught my eye were equity funding for foster youth in community college and financial aid barriers for kinship youth.

In 2011, groundbreaking legislation, known as Assembly Bill 194 (AB 194) was enacted, granting current and former foster youth priority registration for enrollment in classes at California State University and Community College campuses and requesting that University of California campuses do the same.

For the past 25 years, Californian community colleges have waived enrollment fees for foster youth and other financially needy students. For the past two years, the state’s foster youth have also had the right to priority registration for community college classes.