Barriers to Degree Completion for College Students With Foster Care Histories: Results From a 10-Year Longitudinal Study. (May 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Okpych, Nathanael J.; Courtney, Mark E.
• Is Part Of: Journal of college student retention. Volume 23:Number 1(2021)
• Page Start: 28
• Page End: 54
• Publication Date: 2021-05
• Subjects: foster care -- persistence -- degree completion -- risk and protective factors; College dropouts -- Periodicals; College dropouts -- Prevention -- Periodicals; College attendance -- Periodicals; 378.16913
• DOI: 10.1177/1521025118791776
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1521-0251

Abstract

Youth who were in foster care as adolescents make up a small but highly vulnerable subpopulation of the college student body. This article analyzes secondary data collected from one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies of foster youth. The analytic sample includes 329 foster youth from three Midwestern states who attended college in the mid- to late-2000s. Degree completion was examined up to age 29 or 30 years from National Student Clearinghouse records and cross checked with self-report survey data. A wide range of precollege entry, postcollege entry, and college-level factors were examined as predictors of degree completion. Foster youth were less than half as likely as low-income first-generation students from a nationally representative study to earn a degree by 6 years (12% vs. 28%). Logistic regression results found that life circumstances after youth entered college (financial hardships, needing to work, and parental responsibilities) and college-level factors were the main predictors of degree completion.