Giving Compass' Take:

• The Hechinger Report gives details about a special program at Western Michigan University and other colleges that have started to help foster youth earn degrees.

• What public-private partnerships will help advance this effort? How can philanthropists open up more opportunities for children in foster care overall?

• Here are some of the challenges of educating youth in foster care.

College students often decamp from their universities during the summer to intern, study abroad or just get a break from dining hall food. But for Kayla Mayes, it’s a time to buckle down.

Her first semester at Western Michigan University, Mayes barely earned a 1.7 grade-point average. A class on the health effects of drug use felt overwhelming — “I wasn’t used to such long lectures,” she said — and pre-algebra was a struggle too. But good grades in reading and writing classes helped her finish the year with a 2.6 GPA and now she is hoping to lift it higher.

“I’m working on getting above a 3.0,” said Mayes, now 19, one rainy afternoon earlier this year. She was sitting in the campus’s Bernhard Center, which offers a mix of fast-food dining options, quiet places to work, a bookstore and other student resources. Later that day, she planned to study for her summer session classes, English and public speaking, and to meet with an advisor.

After that, she’d head back to the dorm, which stays open year-round for students like her. Later in the week, she might pop over to an office across the sprawling campus to chat with the employee who makes sure her financial aid is on track, or to see the coaches she visits regularly for help with coursework and other advice.

This support is available to Mayes because she’s part of a select group of Western Michigan students known as the Seita Scholars. Her primary qualification for the program: being in foster care.

Read the full article about the programs helping foster care kids go to college by Delece Smith-Barrow at The Hechinger Report