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Education


“WE ARE THEIR PARENT”: PROPOSAL CALLS FOR FREE COLLEGE TUITION FOR COLORADO
CHILDREN IN FOSTER CARE

Colorado is one of only 15 states that doesn’t have a tuition waiver program for
kids who grew up in foster care.

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Jennifer Brown
4:30 AM MST on Feb 11, 2022
Charis Glatthar, 39, lived in 14 homes in four years as a teenager and is now
working toward a degree at Metropolitan State University of Denver. (Olivia Sun,
The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
 * Credibility:
 * This article contains new, firsthand information uncovered by its
   reporter(s). This includes directly interviewing sources and research /
   analysis of primary source documents.×close
   Original Reporting
 * As a news piece, this article cites verifiable, third-party sources which
   have all been thoroughly fact-checked and deemed credible by the
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   Sources Cited

Charis Glatthar became a foster kid at age 14, then lived in 14 homes in four
years. She lost track of how many schools she attended. 

When Glatthar aged out of the child welfare system, she hoped she could go to
college, but had no money and no clue about how to apply for financial aid.
She’s been trying to catch up ever since. 

Now 39 and a student at Metropolitan State University of Denver, Glatthar has
been attending college on and off since 2004, starting with community college
and then working toward a bachelor’s degree at MSU Denver, all the while working
as a barista, in retail, at the Colorado Convention Center and on campus as a
chemistry research assistant. Her health issues, including recently losing her
eyesight, have forced Glatthar to take time off from college, but the biggest
obstacle to earning a degree has been financial. 

A plan to provide free tuition at community colleges, state universities and
trade schools for kids who grew up in Colorado’s foster care system comes about
20 years too late for Glatthar. Still, she can’t help but think about how it
could have changed her life.

“Gosh, I would have been done a long time ago,” she said.

Charis Glatthar, 39, lived in 14 homes in four years as a teenager and is now
working toward a degree at Metropolitan State University of Denver. (Olivia Sun,
The Colorado Sun via Report for America)

A legislative effort, led by Democrats but with at least some Republican
support, would require public higher education institutions to waive tuition for
young people who were in the foster care system. The plan is projected to cost
about $700,000 per year, evenly split between state taxpayers and colleges and
universities, according to the current draft of the bill.

It would require high schools to notify foster students that they’re eligible
for free tuition, and would require that a navigator at the Colorado Department
of Higher Education help them apply. The bill also requires that higher
education institutions designate an employee to serve as a liaison to
prospective students in foster care. Students would have to first apply for
federal financial aid and for a scholarship specifically for foster children,
through the Chafee program in Colorado, that provides up to about $5,000.  



“The state of Colorado owes this to our foster youth,” said Sen. Rachel
Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat and prime sponsor of the bill. “We are their
parent.” 

Children in the foster care system are the least likely of any demographic to
attend college in Colorado. Only about 30% of foster teens graduate from high
school in four years. Of those, just 13% enroll in college by age 21. 


TODAY’S UNDERWRITER



Nationwide, 3% of teens who age out of foster care, meaning they were not
adopted or returned to their families, earn an associate’s degree or higher. 

“This is despicable,” Zenzinger said during the bill’s first hearing at the
Capitol, where it passed 5-2 in the Senate Education Committee.

Metropolitan State University has a model program to help kids who aged out of
foster care succeed in college, though the school could help many more students
if tuition were waived, said Miguel Huerta, director of a campus program called
Epic Scholars, which is for former foster youth and other students who have no
family support. 

Each semester, 150-200 students under age 24 at MSU Denver fill out their
federal financial aid documents as independents. They are former foster kids,
orphans, students living in the country without parents and those who were
homeless in high school. 

Charis Glatthar, 39, lived in 14 homes in four years as a teenager and is now
working toward a degree at Metropolitan State University of Denver. (Olivia Sun,
The Colorado Sun via Report for America)

Huerta’s program, though, has 53 slots. Students who join Epic Scholars get help
finding subsidized housing, applying for food assistance, filling out forms for
financial aid and scholarships, and they support each other by gathering for
outings, including bowling and hiking. Sometimes, students are referred to the
program not because they already have independent status on their federal
student aid application, but because a professor learned they were sleeping in
their car and had no parents to help them, Huerta said. Six participants
graduated last semester. 

If tuition were covered by the university and the state, and foster kids knew
about the opportunity in high school, more would enroll, he said. 

“It would make this option more visible,” said Huerta, also the assistant
director of community engagement and programs at MSU’s Student Care Center.
“More people would be telling foster youth that they could go to college. We
should be doing everything we can for former foster youth who have had so many
struggles. They deserve the opportunity.”


TODAY’S UNDERWRITER



Other universities in the state, including the University of Colorado, Mesa
State University and the University of Northern Colorado, support the measure. 

Republican Senators Paul Lundeen, of Monument, and Barbara Kirkmeyer, of Weld
County, voted against the proposal. Lundeen said he appreciates the goals of the
bill, but is opposed to mandating that colleges waive tuition. People, not
policy, change other people’s lives, he said. 

“I perceive the need,” Lundeen said. “I do not perceive this as the optimized
policy response.” 

Each year in Colorado, about 200 teens and young adults leave the foster care
system to live on their own. About 4,000 children are now in foster placements
across the state.

Legislative analysts project that about 4,500 students in Colorado would be
eligible for the scholarship each year, about that about 15% of them would
attend college. 

Eligible young people, according to the proposal, are those placed in foster
care in Colorado before their 13th birthday, placed with foster parents who
aren’t their relatives after their 13th birthday, or were the subject of a court
ruling of child abuse and neglect case at any age. 

Tori Shuler, now director of advocacy at a nonprofit that helps foster children,
is among the 3% of former foster kids who graduated from college. The week she
entered foster care for the second time, at age 16, a teacher tried to comfort
her by saying that she could go to college for free. The teacher was wrong.

“That myth exists,” Shuler told the committee. “Colorado is one of 15 states
that has not sent its foster children to college and that is shameful.”

Most states, including California, Texas, Illinois and Florida, have tuition
waiver programs for kids who grew up in foster care, and many passed their laws
years ago, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. 

Shuler, with Fostering Great Ideas, got through college by working two jobs and
taking out student loans. Her federal Pell Grant barely covered books, let alone
tuition, she said. She wanted to attend law school, but couldn’t afford it. 

“Foster children are the most marginalized group in education and we all want to
do something about it,” Shuler said. “This is what we can do.” 



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Jennifer Brown

The Colorado Sun — 303-589-0175 jennifer@coloradosun.com


READ MORE:

 * college tuition
 * foster care
 * foster children
 * Paul Lundeen


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