On any given day, there are nearly 424,000 children in foster care in the United States.

 

In 2019, more than 672,000 children spent time in U.S. foster care in the United States.

 

On average, children in Texas remain in state care for more than 18 months and 5% of children in foster care have languished there for five or more years.

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Also in 2019, more than 20,000 young people aged out of foster care without permanent families. Research has shown that those who leave care without being linked to forever families have a higher likelihood than youth in the general population to experience homelessness, unemployment, and incarceration as adults.

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Foster students who remain in school are oftentimes older than students in the general population. One contributing factor is that statistics show foster care students are held back three times more often than  students in the general population. Much of this is linked to the high number of times which foster students move physically.

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The foster care system underinvests in foster children, contributing less than 50% of what it costs an average American family to raise a child from 0 – 17 years of age. With this tragic lack of investment, it is not surprising that youth are not adequately prepared for independence.

 

Within four years of aging out of foster care, 70% will be on government assistance, 25% will not have completed high school, and less than 12% will ever earn their college degree. Not only is this a tragic loss of potential, but our economy as a whole suffers a cost of $1 million per youth because of lost production and the cost of social services.

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Within four years of aging out, 50% have no earnings, and those who do work make an average annual income of $7,500. After a foster youth ages out, homelessness and unemployment become a huge issue. Despite there being more than 34 million entry level jobs nationwide, many foster youth aren’t prepared to be independent and don’t have the skills or resources needed to access the opportunities that could launch them on a path to employment.

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The overall graduation rate for foster youth fell from 64.6% in 2019 to 55.3% in 2020. That compares to an overall graduation rate of 87.3% for other students during that same time period.

 

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