Children who grow up in foster care have lower rates of high school and post-secondary education completion. Using the PRISMA methodology (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses), Gypen et al. (2017) systematically gathered published research articles from electronic databases such as
PsycINFO, Springer,
Science Direct, and
Google Scholar. Their comprehensive review included articles under the terms "Foster care" or "Foster alumni" or "foster children" and "long-term perspectives" or "long-term results". The studies included participants aged 17 years and older (no age cap) gathering data from family service systems and child protective systems. Dworsky and Courtney (2009) found that in child protective systems, only 64% had completed high school by the age of 19 and Pecora, Williams et al. (2006) found that by the age of 29, 85% had completed high school or completed a
GED. The family service systems showed that 45% of foster students completed high school. Compared to the general population of 73%, this is considerably low. Gypen et al. (2017) suggests that this means that if given more time, children who grew in foster care, have a higher chance of getting a high school diploma or GED. although there are indications that women have better outcomes than men (Naccarato et al. 2010). Pecora, Williams et al. (2006) found that 42.7% started education after high school but by the age of 25, only 9.6% were still enrolled. The
San Francisco Chronicle reports that less than half of emancipated youth who have aged out
graduate from
high school, compared to 85% of all 18- to 24-year-olds; fewer than 1 in 8 graduate from a four-year
college; two-thirds had not maintained employment for a year; fewer than 1 in 5 was completely self-supporting; more than a quarter of the males spent time in jail; and 4 of 10 had become parents as a result of an unplanned pregnancy. ==Responses==