Mentorship Opportunities for Foster Youth and its Impact on College Enrollment

Foster youth are not graduating from college at the same level as youth who were not involved in the foster care system. There are laws and programs that assist former foster youth while they are in college by connecting them with resources in their community. The problem is getting foster youth into college and the problem continues to be looked at through an intervention lens, instead of a preventative lens. In this thesis, we took a qualitative phenomenological approach by looking at the opportunities that foster youth experienced with their mentors. Mentors have the potential to close that educational gap and provide foster youth opportunities that contribute to their college enrollment. It is recommended for more programs to start at the high school level when trying to address the lack of college enrollment among students who were involved in the foster care system.