The state legislature passed a bill that makes attaining a college degree easier for homeless youth without parents or guardians, but supporters said some strides have yet to be made.
The bill, passed this session, offers a tuition waiver to those defined as unaccompanied homeless youth, state residents who are not in the physical custody of a parent or guardian and lack a stable, adequate residence. It met with bipartisan support and passed both chambers of the General Assembly unanimously and now awaits a signature from Gov. Martin O’Malley to become state law.
“What we’re trying to do is provide an opportunity for someone who has been homeless to have an opportunity to get to college in an affordable way,” said Sen. Richard Madaleno (D-Montgomery). “Part of the problem with being homeless is, without the documentation you have when you have a fixed residence, you run into all sorts of, in essence, paperwork and red tape problems that throw up barriers and costs to go to college, and it’s just trying to clear the way.”
State law offers a tuition waiver to youth in foster care programs, and this new bill seeks to expand that existing program to include unaccompanied homeless youth. Those children are defined being “not in the physical custody of a parent or guardian” and lacking “fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence,” according to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, which this bill uses as a framework to identify these individuals.
In February, bill sponsor Sen. Ed Reilly (R-Anne Arundel) said the bill is “not a free college education without strings,” as students will still have to be academically qualified for college.
Extending the existing law to include unaccompanied homeless youth is a logical move, said Ingrid Lofgren, a Skadden Fellow at the Homeless Persons Representation Project.
“The reasons that youth become unaccompanied and homeless overwhelmingly are related to family breakdown,” Lofgren said. “A lot of these young people have experienced abuse and neglect and probably really should have been in the child welfare system, but for whatever reason, they weren’t.”
Bill sponsor Del. Mary Washington (D-Baltimore City) based the bill on a recommendation from the Task Force to Study Housing and Supportive Services for Unaccompanied Homeless Youth that urged legislators to consider removing as many financial barriers to higher education as possible for homeless youth.
Energizing support for the bill was easy, Madaleno said, because the legislature understood what supporting it meant.
“This small upfront investment stabilizes their situation and puts them on a path that could save the state countless dollars in future services to homeless adults, and it can more importantly transform an individual’s life,” Madaleno said.
Now the focus will be on outreach efforts to make sure everyone involved is aware the program exists, said Monisha Cherayil, an attorney at the Public Justice Center who lobbied for the bill.
“A huge hole is that many youth, many staff in high schools, many staff at universities or in their financial aid offices just don’t even know that these types of programs exist,” Cherayil said. “Even when you’ve got a real accomplishment on the books, it may not actually translate into concrete benefits to individual students.”
More can be done to ensure these individuals not only get to college but also stay enrolled and eventually graduate, Cherayil said.
“The passage of this tuition wavier bill is really just a first step in improving homeless students’ access to higher education,” she said.
Cherayil would like to see the higher education community take up this cause and provide on-campus guidance and mentoring resources to these students. Another need is stable housing, she said, which is critical “because they don’t necessarily have a roof over their heads, they don’t have a place to go during vacations during breaks and so forth.”
