The Educated Guess: Foster youths’ financial climb through college getting even steeper

By Rosa Ramirez

The last time Lerone Matthis was released from the Division of Juvenile Justice, in April 2008, he feared he had reached bottom.

“I was discouraged by the prospects for a meaningful future,” Matthis recalled.

He didn’t have a place to rest his head, bathe, or change his clothes. He wore the same jeans and a white shirt that was dingy around the neck because it hadn’t been washed for a month. He bought socks from a neighborhood liquor store, relied on relatives and friends for food and shelter, and at times the former foster youth simply went hungry.

However, Matthis had earned a GED in jail. When he got out, he enrolled in City College of San Francisco through an educational support system for the formerly incarcerated. Still, the 29-year-old single father of two young children never believed he would graduate.

via Foster youths’ financial climb through college getting even steeper – by Rosa Ramirez.

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