Estimating a national college enrollment rate for youth with foster care histories using the National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD): limitations of NYTD and a call to revise and relaunch

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.

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