Michigan wants to create a college scholarship fund for foster youth. How lovely.
According to what little data that are maintained relevant to foster care high school dropout rates, it seems the going number is about 50%.
According to what little data that are maintained relevant to foster care high school graduates who go onto college, that rate is agreed to be at 20%.
According to what little data that are maintained relevant to foster care college graduation rates, it is coming in at 2%.
For all intended purposes, the following Bills have to be specifically crafted for Wayne County and Detroit, as this is the geographic region of the state which has the highest concentration of the state's population, poverty and the highest rates of kids in foster care.
Detroit also has the highest concentration of colleges and universities so these proposed Bills would greatly assist foster youth who graduate high school to do onto college right?
Senate Bill 543: Authorize foster care scholarships tax checkoff
Introduced by Sen. Peter MacGregor (R) on October 6, 2015, to allow an individual to choose to automatically contribute $5 or more from his or her state income tax refund to provide college scholarships to children in foster care.
http://www.michiganvotes.org/
Introduced by Sen. Peter MacGregor (R) on October 6, 2015, to allow an individual to choose to automatically contribute $5 or more from his or her state income tax refund to provide college scholarships to children in foster care.
http://www.michiganvotes.org/
Senate Bill 544: Authorize foster care scholarships tax checkoff
Introduced by Sen. Marty Knollenberg (R) on October 6, 2015, to allow an individual to choose to automatically contribute $5 or more from his or her state income tax refund to provide college scholarships to children in foster care.
http://www.michiganvotes.org/
Introduced by Sen. Marty Knollenberg (R) on October 6, 2015, to allow an individual to choose to automatically contribute $5 or more from his or her state income tax refund to provide college scholarships to children in foster care.
http://www.michiganvotes.org/
The answer is no, and here is why:
Michigan Adoption Resource Exchange (MARE) warehouses about 3,000, many who are disabled and have been bounced around between institutions and multiple foster care placements in multiple school districts where high school graduation is foreign concept to them, if these youth were even lucky enough to have an IEP direct educational assistance from a special needs program that only functions on paper.
Then, out of the 3,000 waiting for adoption from MARE, there are about 361 kids of high school age many of whom are severely disabled and in need of palliative care, which data are not extrapolated from this number.
Then there is about a 41% of 11th graders in Michigan who are not proficient in reading. I did not even want to touch the math proficiency scores. Of this proportionate rate, foster care youth were not identified.
So that leaves us with about 3,497 kids in foster care of high school age where we must apply the same standards of rule-outs as with the adoption population. With poor mental health care, special needs education programs and multiple, failed, foster care placements, and poverty, we can already do a quick and dirty application for the justification of the 50% high school dropout rate.
Without boring my readers with an equation, I am going to estimate that less than 1,000 kids will be eligible, or meet basic qualification criteria to even make it to college, that is if they are one of the lucky ones to find a job to help with basic needs like food and shelter. The economic barrier of poverty in Michigan will cut that number in half, leaving about 500 foster kids who age out, able to go to college.
According to the data, we are looking at a graduation rate of 2.5% from college.
So why the foster care scholarship program?
Money, but money may not always a bad motivation if it is being generated for the best use.
In the instance of Michigan and its foster youth scholarship program, I believe I would be safe to say that not much of the income tax deductions will be going to foster youth or former foster youth, just based on the cursory evaluation I just did, but there is always that long term interest and investment opportunities of the fund.
Michigan is attempting, without out much effort to address the issues of youth transitioning out foster care, to provide opportunities in the real world, but the efforts are dearth of reality.
I have a better idea.
How about legislation to designate all foster youth as disabled so they may qualify for Social Supplemental Income (SSI) monthly payments so they do not have to worry about living in the streets, begging for food as the state has cut SNAP again, so they can focus on surviving once these kids are kicked out of the "loving and caring" foster homes when they age out.
In utilizing the disability designation route, these foster youth and former foster youth are now guaranteed full health care coverage for life to address the horrors they survived in foster care through Medicaid.
Then, there are opportunities in Medicaid programs to financially assist foster youth who want to further themselves in many forms of education, not just college of whom many will never qualify due to the pathetic education received while in foster care.
Yes, the majority of former foster youth end up in the streets and Michigan lawmakers are going to focus on a long term project, which will take a few years to build up and solicit hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital to establish a program foundation in order to ceremoniously throw a handful of foster youth a few hundred dollars a year to go to college.
How about legislation that just makes college, or vocational training, free for any kid who survives foster care.
From the looks of it, these two Michigan Senators look to make a sweet name for themselves in their foster care platform congressional campaigns or secure jobs with the new scholarship foundation.
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