https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5929-7716
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ABSTRACT
The launch of the National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD) in 2011 was a watershed moment in the history of studying older youth in foster care. For the first time, there was the prospect of generating national estimates of key policy-relevant outcomes, such as the rate youth enroll in postsecondary education (PSE). However, flaws in NYTD’s survey items limit its usefulness. For example, NYTD’s education items only ask about current school enrollment, not past enrollment. We analyze NYTD data to estimate a national PSE enrollment rate at age 21. Youth with care histories are about half as likely as non-foster peers to be currently enrolled in PSE at age 21 (22% vs. 53%). We then compare NYTD findings in California with findings from a study of youth with care backgrounds in the same state that gathered more comprehensive data on PSE enrollment. This comparison quantifies the extent to which NYTD data undercounts PSE enrollment and demonstrates how this can lead to inaccurate conclusions about gender and racial disparities. We provide simple, feasible recommendations for improving NYTD education questions and call for a broader revision of NYTD so that it will generate data more useful to child welfare policy and practice.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Disclaimer
The findings reported herein were performed with the permission of California Department of Social Services (CDSS). The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the authors and should not be considered as representing the policy of the collaborating agency or any agency of the California government.
Notes
1. In terms of the meaning of “college qualified”, Wolanin (Citation2005) stated, “For the purpose of this report, all high school graduates are considered to be college qualified, and it is, in fact, the case that access to some form of higher education, especially community colleges and proprietary vocational schools, is available to all high school graduates.” (p.37). Thus, when Wolanin stated that the enrollment rates applied to youth with care backgrounds who “finished high school and were college ready”, this simply meant that youth finished high school.
2. Most mentions of the 20% statistic in the report state that this is among youth who “completed high school” or among “college-qualified” youth. However, two of the mentions in the report state that the 20% enrollment rate is “among foster youth”, not among youth who finished high school or were college ready (Wolanin, Citation2005, p.vii and p.24). Thus, the specific youth to whom this statistic applies was used inconsistently throughout the report.
3. The law also created the John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program. Independent living services funded by this program are sometimes referred to as “Chafee services.”
4. The NYTD dataset contains several reasons for nonparticipation, such as being mentally or physically unable to participate, incarcerated, runaway or missing, and death.
5. The 50.2% overall RR for the age-19 survey was calculated by multiplying the age-17 RR by the age-19 RR among youth eligible for the age-19 survey [(.693*.724)*100]. If we simply divided the raw numbers of the age-19 respondents by the original sample of eligible youth [(8,906/23,780)*100 = 37.5%], this would fail to take into account that some states employed random sampling for follow-up surveys so not all of the 23,780 youths were eligible for the age-19 survey. The same principle applies to the age-21 RR calculation.
6. Youths were deemed ineligible during the CalYOUTH field period different reasons, including being on runaway status for at least two months, exiting foster care to return home to their family, being physically or mentally unable to participate, being incarcerated, and moving out of state.
7. Although not the focus of this manuscript, there was considerable variation between states in current enrollment rates. At age 21, the rates varied from a low of 2.9% and a high of 50.4%. The middle 50-percent of states (the interquartile range) had enrollment rates between 15% and 24%.
8. To be clear, “currently enrolled” and “recently enrolled” are distinct groups of youth. Currently enrolled youth are those who were enrolled at the time of their CalYOUTH interview. Recently enrolled youth are those who were not enrolled at the time of their CalYOUTH interview, but who had enrolled in the time since their previous CalYOUTH interview.
9. Among youth who were recently enrolled before their age-19 interview (n = 90), 75.0% reported having no credential, 22.5% had a vocational or training certificate or license, and 2.5% had a college degree. Among youth who were recently enrolled before their age-21 interview (n = 194), 68.7% reported having no credential, 26.4% had a vocational or training certificate or license, and 5.0% had a college degree. One caveat pertains to the percentages of youth who completed a vocational or training certificate or license. For some CalYOUTH participants who reported completing a certificate or license, it is not possible to determine when they completed this credential. It may have been completed before they completed their secondary schooling (i.e., it is not a postsecondary credential). Additionally, because the survey question was asked broadly, some youth may have interpreted the question to also be asking about brief vocational trainings (e.g., a two-week certificate course) rather than vocational training programs, which typically take between six months to two years to complete.
10. The NYTD Plus Abbreviated Version has six items about education, but respondents will not need to complete all six items. The number of items a given youth has to complete depends on their answers to earlier questions (see the skip instructions in bold).
11. The NYTD Plus Full version has 11 survey questions about education. However, the five additional questions ask about other aspects of youths’ education, such as the highest middle school/high school grade they completed, whether they are currently enrolled on a full-time or part-time basis, how enrolled youth are paying for school, and barriers preventing non-enrolled youth from continuing their education.
12. The items asks about both informational support and emotional support. It is possible, for instance, for a youth to have an adult who they turn to for emotional support but not advice (or vice versa). This can make the question confusing to answer and reduces the reliability of the item. These are distinct types of social support that should be asked about separately.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Nathanael J. Okpych
Nathanael J. Okpych is an Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut’s School of Social Work. He studies the transition to adulthood for youth in foster care, focusing on factors, policies, and programs aimed at increasing college access and success. Dr. Okpych earned his PhD from the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice at the University of Chicago. He also holds masters degrees in biostatistics and epidemiology (University of Chicago), social work (Rutgers University), and clinical psychology (Duquesne University). Dr. Okpych’s research is informed by his professional experience providing mental health services to youth in residential, school, and community settings, as well as working for several years in college residence life.