College access has been defined by higher education researchers McDonough et al. as the process whereby educators, policy makers, and administrators attempt to ensure a college education for all who aspire to that goal. U.S. society promotes the attainment of a 4-year college degree as an aim related to financial reward in lucrative careers, but for foster youth this aspiration often seems completely unfeasible.

Federal communications on college access contribute to this perception of value, yet the construct of college access offers no solid linguistic ground for those inquiring more deeply about its logic, meaning, and implications. Indeed, in 2024 more and more public sentiment is shifting away from higher education as a fast pass to the upper middle class based on $1.8 trillion in student debt and low ROI on too many degrees over the past 10 years. Nonetheless, few would argue that when disadvantaged students find a way through the maze to access a completed college degree, both societal and economic benefit frequently follow.

My exploration of conceptual semantics applied to the cognitive structure of contextual meaning within those constructs were offered in this publicly available 225-page dissertation offering in 2022 to spark deeper critical thinking and perhaps, as a result, policy. Among the several interrelated opaque or misunderstood ideas are those of college access, college eligibility, and college readiness.

Did You Know?

Beginning with the earliest colleges in the U.S. circa 1636, when the Massachusetts Bay colonial legislature founded Harvard University, institutions of higher education admitted only males until 1837. At that time, Mary Lyon founded Mount Holyoke so that females were able to attend college in the U.S. Generally these were privileged daughters of wealthy families.
Following the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act of 1862 and 1890 the earliest idea of a public promise of higher education access for a broader demographic of Americans came into play. Certainly teens outside of intact homes and lacking economic security were far from the mainstream of institutional concern.

In some of the earliest U.S. rhetoric about access, the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act’s author, Justin Smith Morrill, stated the Act’s purpose was to build a college in every state “upon a sure and perpetual foundation, accessible to all”. Economic structures of the U.S. higher education system have still evolved undermine access for poor or working-class students. Although an educated populace seems to constitute a public good, without individual means to pay for tuition and other fees millions of U.S. students every year are stymied from applying. Students in foster care too-often fall dead last in the unfortunate stratification of the haves and have nots, lacking both stable home environments and the mentorship necessary to help them. Unable to chart a positive course for their lives before they age out of the system, they find themselves thrown to the wolves—on the streets, hungry, or worse.

A Bit More History

Whereas states once footed the college bill, that previous investment in public institutions designed to promote access has decreased significantly since 2000. Compounding this, the federal role in promoting equitable education is limited by the 10th Amendment, which states that the “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”. Regulations do, however, pass down from the U.S. Department of Education to dictate rules such as the ESSA, the Every Student Succeeds Act enacted in 2015. This, along with
shifting market factors over the past 20 years, has led to state disinvestment in colleges and universities. As recently as 2008, tuition accounted for only 35.8% of public higher-education
revenue across the nation. During 2017, 28 states leaned chiefly on students, not on taxpayers, for tuition dollars. Vermont’s system of public universities and colleges drew 86.6% of its tuition revenue from students, the most extreme example of this trend. At $72.3 billion nationwide, students have recently accounted for an average of 46.4% of overall revenue for public higher education, and those numbers only increase for private colleges and universities. What’s a foster kid—whose entire collection of worldly belongings consists of a few items of clothing transported from home to home in a trash bag—to do?

All About Money

The burden of covering costs for higher education is now America’s second largest debt. Only consumer home mortgages are more costly. The Federal Reserve reports that average monthly student loan payments increased from 2005 to 2016, going from $227 to $393. A typical U.S. student earning a 4-year degree owes at least $20,000 more than they did 13 years ago (Woodworth, 2017). This debt varies by age group, as seen in Figure 1, with students ages 18-44 bearing the largest burden. Debt at any age presents problems; for U.S. students under the age of 30, life goals such as marriage, purchasing a home, or starting a family are impeded by such fiscal liability. And for foster youth? This chart would be infinitely skewed beyond all reckoning.

In 2018, the total enrollment of U.S. undergraduates was 16,600,000, each of whom paid at public institutions an average net price of $13,700; they spent $22,100 at private for-profit
institution, and $27,000 for private nonprofit institutions. That year, institutions awarded 1,000,000 associate’s degrees, 2,000,000 bachelor’s degrees, 820,000 master’s degrees, and
184,000 doctoral degrees. The financial burden borne by those lacking information to help them successfully pay for a bachelor’s degree constitutes the top-most layer of a multi-faceted problem.

Career-readiness

A defense of alternate pathways, in particular CTE—Career and Technical Education—has found a powerful renaissance funded by $1.2 billion in federal monies flowing into school districts over the past five years, even as college access remains constrained. Cross-national corporate implications as jobs move from shore to shore in an increasingly digital economy contribute to the strain of global economics. The college access equation as presented in U.S. federal rhetoric crosses borders with global repercussions. AAI’s research and championing of foster youth to rise to their piece of the American Dream can bolster the economy by helping position them for upskilling in the digital age to quality jobs and a productive future despite a traumatic past.