Postsecondary education is associated with achieving economic self-sufficiency and other positive outcomes. Young people in foster care face challenges pursuing postsecondary education, which can lead to them being less likely than their peers to enroll in college and less likely to earn a degree when enrolled. One federal initiative meant to address this issue is the Chafee Education and Training Voucher (ETV) program. The ETV program was created through a 2001 Congressional amendment to the 1999 John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Act.

Purpose

This report highlights the perspectives of young people who have experienced foster care and received Chafee Education and Training Vouchers (ETVs) to help fund their postsecondary education. In total, we spoke with 81 young people in nine states. These young people told us about their experience of receiving ETVs and offered suggestions for program improvements.

Key Findings and Highlights

Young people shared key insights with us about what was and was not working well about ETV. In particular, young people shared the following:

• Overwhelmingly, they said that the financial assistance that ETV provided was helpful and that having these extra funds relieved a substantial amount of stress in working out how to pay for college and living expenses while in school.
• They learned about ETVs from different adults in their lives and at varying times: while some became aware of the program during high school, a significant number did not learn about the program until they entered college.
• Experiences varied when applying for an ETV and receiving funds, with some encountering challenges when applying for and successfully receiving funds. These varied experiences included the following:
• Young people found that certain extra application and documentation elements that some states require were created more challenges. These extra elements include requiring extensive documentation of foster care history and requiring the applicant to specify how funds will be used. Young people also said that extra steps in the application and verification process often caused delays in application approval and funds disbursement.
• In some cases, young people had challenges getting the responses from college or state staff that they needed to complete the ETV application, including getting necessary information from college financial aid staff and getting ETV staff and child welfare case workers to verify that they qualified to receive an ETV.
• In many cases, young people said that they experienced major delays receiving their funding.

Methods

In 2021 and 2022, we recruited young people for interviews and focus groups from the ten states included in our previous ETV report. In total, we completed 27 interviews and focus groups, speaking to a total of 81 young people in nine of the ten study states. The total number of young people we spoke to was highest in California at 40, followed by Illinois (17), Pennsylvania (8), Ohio (5), New Jersey (3), Oregon (3), Colorado (2), Missouri (2), and Florida (1). The study team was unable to recruit any recipients from Tennessee.

Our recruitment relied largely on state-based intermediaries with connections to young people who have received ETVs. We requested recruitment assistance from state ETV staff, college success programs, school financial aid offices, and foster care service providers. Interviews and focus groups with participants focused on several themes about the experience of receiving an ETV, including how they heard about the program, their experiences with applications and receiving funds, and how they used the funds.

Recommendations

Young people offered several recommendations for state and federal policymakers to consider for future policy and administrative changes:

• Streamlining the application process and improving paperwork processing would be important steps for improving experiences with ETVs.
• Offering more flexible funding in higher amounts would allow young people to better meet their needs, as many young people had to work in addition to receiving ETV funds to pay their expenses. Several young people felt that this made persisting in school more challenging.
• There is room for improvement to ensure all ETV-eligible young people have access to the support they need to navigate financial aid in college. Supportive adults have an important role to play in helping young people navigate program access.

This publication is part of a broader evaluation of the ETV programs. For more information, please visit our ETV project page.